LIBRARY 

CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


1 


S. 


Merles 

THEOCRITUS,  BION,  &   MOSCHUS 


THEOCRITUS,    B1ON 

AND 

MOSCHUS 

RENDERED   INTO   ENGLISH    PROSE 

WITH 
AN  INTRODUCTORY  ESSAV 


A.   LANG,  M.A. 

Lately  Fellow  of  Merton  Colkge,  Oxford 


lLont«0n 
MACMILLAN    AND    CO.,   LIMITED 

NEW  YORK :  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1901 

A II  rights  reserved 


First  Edition  (Crown  Svo)  1880 

Second  Edition  {Golden  Treasury  Series)  1889 

Reprinted  1892,  1896,  1901 


TO 
ERNEST    MYERS 

'Eft 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE        .        .        .        .  xi 

THEOCRITUS — 

Idyl  i        .         .         .                   .         .         .  3 

,,     ii       .         .         .         .         .         .         .11 

,,        III 20 

,,       IV 23 

,,     v 27 

..vi 35 

,,     vii 38 

,,       VIII 46 

,,       IX 52 

,,     x      .        .        .        ...        .         .55 

„     xi 59 

,,       XII      .  .  .  .  .  .  .64 

,,       XIII 67 

,,     xiv  .......  71 

,,       XV 76 

,,       XVI 85 

,,     xvii           ......  91 

,,     xvin.         .         .                  ...  97 

,,     xix   .......  101 

,,     xx    .         .         .         .         .         .         .  102 

,,     xxi  .......  105 

,,       XXII               ......  TIO 

,,         XXIII 121 

,,     xxiv 125 

,,      XXV 132 


Vlll  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Idyl  xxvi 144 

,,      XXVII  ......  147 

„       XXVIII 152 

,,       XXIX  ......  154 

,,     xxx 157 

Epigrams 159 


BION — 


Idyl  I 171 

,,  ii 176 

,,  in 178 

,,  IV  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  179 

..v 179 

,,  vi 180 

Fragments          .         .         .         .         .         .181 


MOSCHUS — 


Idyl  i 187 

,,  ii 189 

,,  in 197 

,,  iv 203 

,,  v 208 

,,  VI 208 

,,  vii 209 

,,  viu 209 

,,  IX  .  210 


LIFE  OF  THEOCRITUS 

(From  Suidas} 

THEOCRITUS,  the  Chian.  But  there  is  another 
Theocritus,  the  son  of  Praxagoras  and  Philinna  (see 
Epigram  XXIII),  or  as  some  say  of  Simichus.  (This 
is  plainly  derived  from  the  assumed  name  Simichidas 
in  Idyl  VII.)  He  was  a  Syracusan,  or,  as  others  say, 
a  Coan  settled  in  Syracuse.  He  wrote  the  so-called 
Bucolics  in  the  Dorian  dialect.  Some  attribute  to 
him  the  following  works  : — The  Proetidae,  The  Plea- 
stires  of  Hope  ('E\7rI5ej),  Hymns,  The  Heroines,  Dirges, 
Ditties,  Elegies,  Iambics,  Epigrams.  Be  it  known 
that  there  are  three  Bucolic  poets  :  this  Theocritus, 
Moschus  of  Sicily,  and  Bion  of  Smyrna,  from  a  village 
called  Phlossa. 


LIFE  OF  THEOCRITUS 
6EOKPITOT  TENDS 

Usually  prefixed  to  the  Idyls') 

THEOCRITUS  the  Bucolic  poet  was  a  Syracusan  by 
extraction,  and  the  son  of  Simichidas,  as  he  says 
himself,  Simichidas,  pray  whither  through  the  noon 
dost  thou  drag  thy  feet?  (Idyl  VII).  Some  say  that 
this  was  an  assumed  name,  for  he  seems  to  have  been 
snub-nosed  (o-i/J.6s),  and  that  his  father  was  Praxagoras, 
and  his  mother  Philinna.  He  became  the  pupil  of 
Philetas  and  Asclepiades,  of  whom  he  speaks  (Idyl 
VII),  and  flourished  about  the  time  of  Ptolemy  Lagus. 
He  gained  much  fame  for  his  skill  in  bucolic  poetry. 
According  to  some  his  original  name  was  Moschus, 
and  Theocritus  was  a  name  later  assumed. 


THEOCRITUS   AND    HIS   AGE 


AT  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  before 
Christ,  in  the  years  just  preceding  those  in 
which  Theocritus  wrote,  the  genius  of  Greece 
seemed  to  have  lost  her  productive  force.  Nor 
would  it  have  been  strange  if  that  force  had 
really  been  exhausted.  Greek  poetry  had 
hitherto  enjoyed  a  peculiarly  free  development, 
each  form  of  art  succeeding  each  without  break 
or  pause,  because  each — epic,  lyric,  dithyramb, 
the  drama — had  responded  to  some  new  need 
of  the  state  and  of  religion.  Now  in  the  years 
that  followed  the  fall  of  Athens  and  the  con- 
quests of  Macedonia,  Greek  religion  and  the 
Greek  state  had  ceased  to  be  themselves. 
Religion  and  the  state  had  been  the  patrons  of 
poetry  ;  on  their  decline  poetry  seemed  dead. 
There  were  no  heroic  kings,  like  those  for 
whom  epic  minstrels  had  chanted.  The  cities 
could  no  longer  welcome  an  Olympian  winner 
with  Pindaric  hymns.  There  was  no  imperial 
Athens  to  fill  the  theatres  with  a  crowd  of 
citizens  and  strangers  eager  to  listen  to  new 


xn          THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

tragic  masterpieces.  There  was  no  humorous 
democracy  to  laugh  at  all  the  world,  and  at 
itself,  with  Aristophanes.  The  very  religion  of 
Sophocles  and  Aeschylus  was  debased.  A 
vulgar  usurper  had  stripped  the  golden  orna- 
ments from  Athene  of  the  Parthenon.  The 
ancient  faith  in  the  protecting  gods  of  Athens, 
of  Sparta,  and  of  Thebes,  had  become  a  lax 
readiness  to  bow  down  in  the  temple  of  any 
Oriental  Rimmon,  of  Serapis  or  Adonis.  Greece 
had  turned  her  face,  with  Alexander  of  Macedon, 
to  the  East ;  Alexander  had  fallen,  and  Greece 
had  become  little  better  than  the  western  por- 
tion of  a  divided  Oriental  empire.  The  centre 
of  intellectual  life  had  been  removed  from 
Athens  ^Alexandria  {founded  332  B.C.)  The 
new  Greek  cities  of  Egypt  and  Asia,  and  above 
all  Alexandria,  seemed  no  cities  at  all  to  Greeks 
who  retained  the  pure  Hellenic  traditions. 
Alexandria  was  thirty  times  larger  than  the 
size  assigned  by  Aristotle  to  a  well-balanced 
state.  Austere  spectators  saw  in  Alexandria 
an  Eastern  capital  and  mart,  a  place  of  harems 
and  bazaars,  a  home  of  tyrants,  slaves,  dreamers, 
and  pleasure-seekers.  Thus  a  Greek  of  the 
old  school  must  have  despaired  of  Greek  poetry. 
There  was  nothing  (he  would  have  said)  to 
evoke  it  ;  no  dawn  of  liberty  could  flush  this 
silent  Memnon  into  song.  The  collectors, 
critics,  librarians  of  Alexandria  could  only  pro- 
duce literary  imitations  of  the  epic  and  the 
hymn,  or  could  at  best  write  epigrams  or 
inscriptions  for  the  statue  of  some  alien  and 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE        xin 

luxurious  god.  Their  critical  activity  in  every 
field  of  literature  was  immense,  their  original 
genius  sterile.  In  them  the  intellect  of  the 
Hellenes  still  faintly  glowed,  like  embers  on  an 
altar  that  shed  no  light  on  the  way.  Yet  over 
these  embers  the  god  poured  once  again  the 
sacred  oil,  and  from  the  dull  mass  leaped, 
like  a  many -coloured  flame,  the  genius  of 
THEOCRITUS. 

To  take  delight  in  that  genius,  so  human,  so 
kindly,  so  musical  in  expression,  requires,  it 
may  be  said,  no  long  preparation.  The  art  of 
Theocritus  scarcely  needs  to  be  illustrated  by 
any  description  of  the  conditions  among  which 
it  came  to  perfection.  It  is  always  impossible 
to  analyse  into  its  component  parts  the  genius 
of  a  poet.  But  it  is  not  impossible  to  detect 
some  of  the  influences  that  worked  on  Theo- 
critus. We  can  study  his  early  '  environment '  ; 
the  country  scenes  he  knew,  and  the  songs  of 
the  neatherds  which  he  elevated  into  art.  We 
can  ascertain  the  nature  of  the  demand  for 
poetry  in  the  chief  cities  and  in  the  literary 
society  of  the  time.  As  a  result,  we  can  under- 
stand the  broad  twofold  division  of  the  poems 
of  Theocritus  into  rural  and  epic  idyls,  and 
with  this  we  must  rest  contented. 

It  is  useless  to  attempt  a  regular  biography  of 
Theocritus.  Facts  and  dates  are  alike  wanting, 
the  ancient  accounts  (p.  ix)  are  clearly  based 
on  his  works,  but  it  is  by  no  means  impossible 
to  construct  a  '  legend  '  or  romance  of  his  life, 
by  aid  of  his  own  verses,  and  of  hints  and 


xiv          THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

fragments  which  reach  us  from  the  past  and 
the  present.  .  The  genius  of  Theocritus  was  so 
steeped  in  the  colours  of  human  life,  he  bore 
such  true  and  full  witness  as  to  the  scenes  and 
men  he  knew,  that  life  (always  essentially  the 
same)  becomes  in  turn  a  witness  to  his  veracity. 
He  was  born  in  the  midst  of  nature  that, 
through  all  the  changes  of  things,  has  never 
lost  its  sunny  charm.  The  existence  he  loved 
best  to  contemplate,  that  of  southern  shep- 
herds, fishermen,  rural  people,  remains  what 
it  always  has  been  in  Sicily  and  in  the  isles 
of  Greece.  The  habits  and  the  passions  of  his 
countryfolk  have  not  altered,  the  echoes  of 
their  old  love-songs  still  sound  among  the 
pines,  or  by  the  sea-banks,  where  Theocritus 
'  watched  the  visionary  flocks.' 

Theocritus  was  probably  born  in  an  early 
decade  of  the  third  century,  or,  according  to 
Couat,  about  3 1  5  B.C.,  and  was  a  native  of  Syra- 
cuse, '  the  greatest  of  Greek  cities,  the  fairest 
of  all  cities.'  So  Cicero  calls  it,  describing  the 
four  quarters  that  were  encircled  by  its  walls, 
—  each  quarter  as  large  as  a  town, —  the 
fountain  Arethusa,  the  stately  temples  with 
their  doors  of  ivory  and  gold.  On  the  for- 
tunate dwellers  in  Syracuse,  Cicero  says,  the 
sun  shone  every  day,  and  there  was  never  a 
morning  so  tempestuous  but  the  sunlight  con- 
quered at  last,  and  broke  through  the  clouds. 
That  perennial  sunlight  still  floods  the  poems 
of  Theocritus  with  its  joyous  glow.  His  birth- 
place was  the  proper  home  of  an  idyllic  poet, 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE         xv 

of  one  who,  with  all  his  enjoyment  of  the  city 
life  of  Greece,  had  yet  been  '  breathed  on  by 
the  rural  Pan,'  and  best  loved  the  sights  and 
sounds  and  fragrant  air  of  the  forests  and  the 
coast.  Thanks  to  the  mountainous  regions  of 
Sicily,  to  Etna,  with  her  volcanic  cliffs  and 
snow-fed  streams,  thanks  also  to  the  hills  of 
the  interior,  the  populous  island  never  lost  the 
charm  of  nature.  Sicily  was  not  like  the  over- 
crowded and  over-cultivated  Attica ;  among 
the  Sicilian  heights  and  by  the  coast  were  few 
enclosed  estates  and  narrow  farms.  The 
character  of  the  people,  too,  was  attuned  to 
poetry.  The  Dorian  settlers  had  kept  alive  the 
magic  of  rivers,  of  pools  where  the  Nereids 
dance,  and  uplands  haunted  by  Pan.  This 
popular  poetry  influenced  the  literary  verse  of 
Sicily.  The  songs  of  Stesichorus,  a  minstrel 
of  the  early  period,  and  the  little  rural  '  mimes ' 
or  interludes  of  Sophron  are  lost,  and  we  have 
only  fragments  of  Epicharmus.  But  it  seems 
certain  that  these  poets,  predecessors  of  Theo- 
critus, liked  to  mingle  with  their  own  compo- 
sition strains  of  rustic  melody,  -volks-lieder, 
ballads,  love-songs,  ditties,  and  dirges,  such  as 
are  still  chanted  by  the  peasants  of  Greece  and 
Italy.  Thus  in  Syracuse  and  the  other  towns 
of  the  coast,  Theocritus  would  have  always 
before  his  eyes  the  spectacle  of  refined  and 
luxurious  manners,  and  always  in  his  ears 
the  babble  of  the  Dorian  women,  while  he  had 
only  to  pass  the  gates,  and  wander  through  the 
fens  of  Lysimeleia,  by  the  brackish  mere,  or 


xvi          THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

ride  into  the  hills,  to  find  himself  in  the  golden 
world  of  pastoral.  Thinking  of  his  early  years, 
and  of  the  education  that  nature  gives  the 
poet,  we  can  imagine  him,  like  Callicles  in  Mr. 
Arnold's  poem,  singing  at  the  banquet  of  a 
merchant  or  a  general — 

4  With  his  head  full  of  wine,  and  his  hair  crown'd, 
Touching  his  harp  as  the  whim  came  on  him, 
And  praised  and  spoil'd  by  master  and  by  guests, 
Almost  as  much  as  the  new  dancing  girl.' 

We  can  recover  the  world  that  met  his  eyes 
and  inspired  his  poems,  though  the  dates  of  the 
composition  of  these  poems  are  unknown.  We 
can  follow  him,  in  fancy,  as  he  breaks  from 
the  revellers  and  wanders  out  into  the  night 
Wherever  he  turned  his  feet,  he  could  find 
such  scenes  as  he  has  painted  in  the  idyls.  If 
the  moon  rode  high  in  heaven,  as  he  passed 
through  the  outlying  gardens  he  might  catch  a 
glimpse  of  some  deserted  girl  shredding  the 
magical  herbs  into  the  burning  brazier,  and 
sending  upward  to  the  '  lady  Selene  '  the  song 
which  was  to  charm  her  lover  home.  The 
magical  image  melted  in  the  burning,  the  herbs 
smouldered,  the  tale  of  love  was  told,  and 
slowly  the  singer  '  drew  the  quiet  night  into  her 
blood.'  Her  lay  ended  with  a  passage  of 
softened  melancholy — 

'  Do  thou  farewell,  and  turn  thy  steeds  to 
Ocean,  lady,  and  my  pain  I  will  endure,  even 
as  I  have  declared.  Farewell,  Selene  beautiful ; 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE       XVll 

farewell,  ye  other  stars  that  follow  the  wheels 
of  Night.' 

A  grammarian  says  that  Theocritus  borrowed 
this  second  idyl,  the  story  of  Simaetha,  from  a 
piece  by  Sophron.  But  he  had  no  need  to  borrow 
from  anything  but  the  nature  before  his  eyes. 
Ideas  change  so  little  among  the  Greek  country 
people,  and  the  hold  of  superstition  is  so  strong, 
that  betrayed  girls  even  now  sing  to  the  Moon 
their  prayer  for  pity  and  help.  Theocritus  him- 
self could  have  added  little  passion  to  this  in- 
cantation, still  chanted  in  the  moonlit  nights  of 
Greece  : l 

'  Bright  golden  Moon,  that  now  art  near  to 
thy  setting,  go  thou  and  salute  my  lover,  he 
that  stole  my  love,  and  that  kissed  me,  and 
said,  "  Never  will  I  leave  thee."  And,  lo,  he 
has  left  me,  like  a  field  reaped  and  gleaned, 
like  a  church  where  no  man  comes  to  pray, 
like  a  city  desolate.  Therefore  I  would  curse 
him,  and  yet  again  my  heart  fails  me  for 
tenderness,  my  heart  is  vexed  within  me,  my 
spirit  is  moved  with  anguish.  Nay,  even  so  I 
will  lay  my  curse  on  him,  and  let  God  do  even 
as  He  will,  with  my  pain  and  with  my  crying, 
with  my  flame,  and  mine  imprecations.' 

It  is  thus  that  the  women  of  the  islands,  like 
the  girl  of  Syracuse  two  thousand  years  ago, 
hope  to  lure  back  love  or  avenged  love  betrayed, 
and  thus  they  '  win  more  ease  from  song  than 
could  be  bought  with  gold.' 

1  This  fragment  is  from  the  collection  of  M.  Fauriel ; 
Chants  Populaires  de  la  Grtce, 


XVlll       THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

Inwhateverdirection  the  path  of  the  Syracusan 
wanderer  lay,  he  would  find  then,  as  he  would 
find  now  in  Sicily,  some  scene  of  the  idyllic  life, 
framed  between  the  distant  Etna  and  the  sea. 
If  he  strayed  in  the  faint  blue  of  the  summer 
dawn,  through  the  fens  to  the  shore,  he  might 
reach  the  wattled  cabin  of  the  two  old  fisher- 
men in  the  twenty-first  idyl.  There  is  nothing 
in  Wordsworth  more  real,  more  full  of  the  in- 
communicable sense  of  nature,  rounding  and 
softening  the  toilsome  days  of  the  aged  and  the 
poor,  than  the  Theocritean  poem  of  the  Fisher- 
man's Dream.  It  is  as  true  to  nature  as  the 
statue  of  the  naked  fisherman  in  the  Vatican. 
One  cannot  read  these  verses  but  the  vision 
returns  to  one,  of  sandhills  by  the  sea,  of  a  low 
cabin  roofed  with  grass,  where  fishing-rods  of 
reed  are  leaning  against  the  door,  while  the 
Mediterranean  floats  up  her  waves  that  fill  the 
waste  with  sound.  This  nature,  grey  and  still, 
seems  in  harmony  with  the  wise  content  of  old 
men  whose  days  are  waning  on  the  limit  of  life, 
as  they  have  all  been  spent  by  the  desolate 
margin  of  the  sea. 

The  twenty-first  idyl  is  one  of  the  rare  poems 
of  Theocritus  that  are  not  filled  with  the  sun- 
light of  Sicily,  or  of  Egypt.  The  landscapes 
he  prefers  are  often  seen  under  the  noonday 
heat,  when  shade  is  most  pleasant  to  men. 
His  shepherds  invite  each  other  to  the  shelter 
of  oak-trees  or  of  pines,  where  the  dry  fir- 
needles are  strown,  or  where  the  feathered  ferns 
make  a  luxurious  '  couch  more  soft  than  sleep,' 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE        xix 

or  where  the  flowers  bloom  whose  musical 
names  sing  in  the  idyls.  Again,  Theocritus 
will  sketch  the  bare  beginnings  of  the  hillside, 
as  in  the  third  idyl,  just  where  the  olive-gar- 
dens cease,  and  where  the  short  grass  of  the 
heights  alternates  with  rocks,  and  thorns,  and 
aromatic  plants.  None  of  his  pictures  seem 
complete  without  the  presence  of  water.  It 
may  be  but  the  wells  that  the  maidenhair 
fringes,  or  the  babbling  runnel  of  the  fountain 
of  the  Nereids.  The  shepherds  may  sing  of 
Crathon,  or  Sybaris,  or  Himeras,  waters  so 
sweet  that  they  seem  to  flow  with  milk  and  honey. 
Again,  Theocritus  may  encounter  his  rustics 
fluting  in  rivalry,  like  Daphnis  and  Menalcas 
in  the  eighth  idyl,  '  on  the  long  ranges  of  the 
hills.'  Their  kine  and  sheep  have  fed  upwards 
from  the  lower  valleys  to  the  place  where 

'  The  track  winds  down  to  the  clear  stream, 
To  cross  the  sparkling  shallows  ;  there 
The  cattle  love  to  gather,  on  their  way 
To  the  high  mountain-pastures,  and  to  stay, 
Till  the  rough  cow-herds  drive  them  past, 
Knee-deep  in  the  cool  ford  ;  for  'tis  the  last 
Of  all  the  woody,  high,  well-water'd  dells 
On  Etna,  .... 

glade, 

And  stream,  and  sward,  and  chestnut-trees, 
End  here  ;  Etna  beyond,  in  the  broad  glare 
Of  the  hot  noon,  without  a  shade, 
Slope  behind  slope,  up  to  the  peak,  lies  bare  ; 
The  peak,  round  which  the  white  clouds  play.'1 

Theocritus   never  drives  his   flock   so  high, 

1  Empedocles  on  Etna. 

b 


xx          THEOCRITUS  AND  HfS  AGE 

and  rarely  muses  on  such  thoughts  as  come  to 
wanderers  beyond  the  shade  of  trees  and  the 
sound  of  water  among  the  scorched  rocks  and 
the  barren  lava.  The  day  is  always  cooled 
and  soothed,  in  his  idyls,  with  the  '  music  of 
water  that  falleth  from  the  high  face  of  the 
rock,'  or  with  the  murmurs  of  the  sea.  From 
the  cliffs  and  their  seat  among  the  bright  red 
berries  on  the  arbutus  shrubs,  his  shepherds 
flute  to  each  other,  as  they  watch  the  tunny 
fishers  cruising  far  below,  while  the  echo  floats 
upwards  of  the  sailors'  song.  These  shepherds 
have  some  touch  in  them  of  the  satyr  nature ; 
we  might  fancy  that  their  ears  are  pointed  like 
those  of  Hawthorne's  Donatello,  in  '  Trans- 
formation.' 

It  should  be  noticed,  as  a  proof  of  the  truth- 
fulness of  Theocritus,  that  the  songs  of  his 
shepherds  and  goatherds  are  all  such  as  he 
might  really  have  heard  on  the  shores  of  Sicily. 
This  is  the  real  answer  to  the  criticism  which 
calls  him  affected.  When  mock  pastorals 
flourished  at  the  court  of  France,  when  the 
long  dispute  as  to  the  merits  of  the  ancients 
and  moderns  was  raging,  critics  vowed  that  the 
hinds  of  Theocritus  were  too  sentimental  and 
polite  in  their  wooings.  Refinement  and  senti- 
ment were  to  be  reserved  for  princely  shepherds 
dancing,  crook  in  hand,  in  the  court  ballets. 
Louis  XIV  sang  of  himself — 

'  A  son  labeur  il  passe  taut  d'nn  coup, 
Et  rfira  pas  dormir  stir  lafougere, 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE         XXI 

Ny  s'oitblier  anpres  tfime  flergere, 
Jiisques  an  point  d'en  oublitr  le  Loup.  '  J 

Accustomed  to  royal  goatherds  in  silk  and 
lace,  Fontenelle  (a  severe  critic  of  Theocritus) 
could  not  believe  in  the  delicacy  of  a  Sicilian 
who  wore  a  skin  '  stripped  from  the  roughest 
of  he-goats,  with  the  smell  of  the  rennet  cling- 
ing to  it  still.'  Thus  Fontenelle  cries,  '  Can 
any  one  suppose  that  there  ever  was  a  shep- 
herd who  could  say  "  Would  I  were  the  hum- 
ming bee,  Amaryllis,  to  flit  to  thy  cave,  and 
dip  beneath  the  branches,  and  the  ivy  leaves 
that  hide  thee  "  ?  '  and  then  he  quotes  other 
graceful  passages  from  the  love-verses  of  Theo- 
critean  swains.  Certainly  no  such  fancies  were 
to  be  expected  from  the  French  peasants  of 
Fontenelle's  age,  '  creatures  blackened  with  the 
sun,  and  bowed  with  labour  and  hunger.'  The 
imaginative  grace  of  Battus  is  quite  as  remote 
from  our  own  hinds.  But  we  have  the  best  rea- 
son to  suppose  that  the  peasants  of  Theocritus's 
time  expressed  refined  sentiment  in  language 
adorned  with  colour  and  music,  because  the 
modern  love-songs  of  Greek  shepherds  sound  like 
memories  of  Theocritus.  The  lover  of  Amaryllis 
might  have  sung  this  among  his  ditties  — 


Oa  -yevSi,  d  TO.  xefXr;  <roi>  va  KO.TTU 
ua  KCU  5i/6,  /ecu  Trd\e  va  irerdl-u. 


'  To  flit  towards  these  lips  of  thine,  I  fain  would  be 
a  swallow, 

1  Ballet  des  Arts,  dans6  par  sa  Majeste"  ;  le  8  Janvier, 
1663.     A  Paris,  par  Robert  Ballard.  MDCLXIII. 


xxii        THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

To  kiss  thee  once,  to  kiss  thee  twice,  and  then  go 
flying  homeward. ' 1 

In  his  despair,  when  Love  '  clung  to  him 
like  a  leech  of  the  fen,'  he  might  have  mur- 
mured— 

"H0e\a  va.  el/j.a.1  a   TO,  povvd,  /u'aAci^ia  va,  KoifJ.ovfj.cu 
Kat  TO  §LKOV  <TOV  rb  Kop/j.1  va  /JLTJ  TO  <rv\\oyiov/jLO.i. 

'  Would  that  I  were  on  the  high  hills,  and  lay 
where  lie  the  stags,  and  no  more  was  troubled  with 
the  thought  of  thee.' 

Here,  again,  is  a  love-complaint  from  modern 
Epirus,  exactly  in  the  tone  of  Battus's  song  in 
the  tenth  idyl— 

'  White  thou  art  not,  thou  art  not  golden  haired, 
Thou  art  brown,  and  gracious,  and  meet  for  love.' 

Here  is  a  longer  love-ditty — 

'  I  will  begin  by  telling  thee  first  of  thy  per- 
fections :  thy  body  is  as  fair  as  an  angel's  ;  no 
painter  could  design  it.  And  if  any  man  be 
sad,  he  has  but  to  look  on  thee,  and  despite 
himself  he  takes  courage,  the  hapless  one,  and 
his  heart  is  joyous.  Upon  thy  brows  are  shining 
the  constellated  Pleiades,  thy  breast  is  full  of 
the  flowers  of  May,  thy  breasts  are  lilies. 
Thou  hast  the  eyes  of  a  princess,  the  glance  of 
a  queen,  and  but  one  fault  hast  thou,  that  thou 
deignest  not  to  speak  to  me.' 

1  These  and  the  following  ditties  are  from  the  modern 
Greek  ballads  collected  by  MM.  Fauriel  and  Legrand. 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE      xxiii 

Battus  might  have  cried  thus,  with  a  modern 
Greek  singer,  to  the  shade  of  the  dead  Amaryllis 
(Idyl  IV),  the  'gracious  Amaryllis,  unforgotten 
even  in  death  '- 

'  Ah,  light  of  mine  eyes,  what  gift  shall  I 
send  thee  ;  what  gift  to  the  other  world  ?  The 
apple  rots,  and  the  quince  decayeth,  and  one 
by  one  they  perish,  the  petals  of  the  rose  !  I 
send  thee  my  tears  bound  in  a  napkin,  and 
what  though  the  napkin  burns,  if  my  tears 
reach  thee  at  last ! ' 

The  difficulty  is  to  stop  choosing,  where  all 
the  verses  of  the  modern  Greek  peasants  are 
so  rich  in  Theocritean  memories,  so  ardent,  so 
delicate,  so  full  of  flowers  and  birds  and  the 
music  of  fountains.  Enough  has  been  said, 
perhaps,  to  show  what  the  popular  poetry 
of  Sicily  could  lend  to  the  genius  of  Theo- ' 
critus. 

From  her  shepherds  he  borrowed  much, — 
their  bucolic  melody  ;  their  love -complaints  ; 
their  rural  superstitions ;  their  system  of  answer- 
ing couplets,  in  which  each  singer  refines  on 
the  utterance  of  his  rival.  But  he  did  not 
borrow  their  '  pastoral  melancholy.'  There  is 
little  of  melancholy  in  Theocritus.  When  Battus 
is  chilled  by  the  thought  of  the  death  of  Ama- 
ryllis, it  is  but  as  one  is  chilled  when  a  thin 
cloud  passes  over  the  sun,  on  a  bright  day  of 
early  spring.  And  in  an  epigram  the  dead 
girl  is  spoken  of  as  the  kid  that  the  wolf  has 
seized,  while  the  hounds  bay  all  too  late. 
Grief  will  not  bring  her  back.  The  world 


xxiv       THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

must  go  its  way,  and  we  need  not  darken  its 
sunlight  by  long  regret.  Yet  when,  for  once, 
Theocritus  adopted  the  accent  of  pastoral 
lament,  when  he  raised  the  rural  dirge  for 
Daphnis  into  the  realm  of  art,  he  composed 
a  masterpiece,  and  a  model  for  all  later  poets, 
as  for  the  authors  of  Lycidas,  Thyrsis,  and 
Adonais. 

Theocritus  did  more  than  borrow  a  note 
from  the  country  people.  He  brought  the 
gifts  of  his  own  spirit  to  the  contemplation  of 
the  world.  He  had  the  clearest  vision,  and  he 
had  the  most  ardent  love  of  poetry,  '  of  song 
may  all  my  dwelling  be  full,  for  neither  is  sleep 
more  sweet,  nor  sudden  spring,  nor  are  flowers 
more  delicious  to  the  bees,  so  dear  to  me  are 
the  Muses.'  .  .  .  '  Never  may  we  be  sundered, 
•the  Muses  of  Pieria  and  I.'  Again,  he  had 
perhaps  in  greater  measure  than  any  other  poet 
the  gift  of  the  undisturbed  enjoyment  of  life. 
The  undertone  of  all  his  idyls  is  joy  in  the  sun- 
shine and  in  existence.  His  favourite  word, 
the  word  that  opens  the  first  idyl,  and,  as  it 
were,  strikes  the  keynote,  is  aSv,  sweet.  He 
finds  all  things  delectable  in  the  rural  life  : 

'  Sweet  are  the  voices  of  the  calves,  and 
sweet  the  heifers'  lowing ;  sweet  plays  the 
shepherd  on  the  shepherd's  pipe,  and  sweet 
is  the  echo.' 

Even  in  courtly  poems,  and  in  the  artificial 
hymns  of  which  we  are  to  speak  in  their  place, 
the  memory  of  the  joyful  country  life  comes 
over  him.  He  praises  Hiero,  because  Hiero  is 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE        xxv 

to  restore  peace  to  Syracuse,  and  when  peace 
returns,  then  '  thousands  of  sheep  fattened  in 
the  meadows  will  bleat  along  the  plain,  and 
the  kine,  as  they  flock  in  crowds  to  the  stalls, 
will  make  the  belated  traveller  hasten  on  his 
way.'  The  words  evoke  a  memory  of  a  narrow 
country  lane  in  the  summer  evening,  when  light 
is  dying  out  of  the  sky,  and  the  fragrance  of 
wild  roses  by  the  roadside  is  mingled  with  the 
perfumed  breath  of  cattle  that  hurry  past  on 
their  homeward  road.  There  was  scarcely  a 
form  of  the  life  he  saw  that  did  not  seem  to 
him  worthy  of  song,  though  it  might  be  but  the 
gossip  of  two  rude  hinds,  or  the  drinking  bout 
of  the  Thessalian  horse  -jobber,  and  the  false 
girl  Cynisca  and  her  wild  lover  ^Cschines.  But 
it  is  the  sweet  country  that  he  loves  best  to 
behold  and  to  remember.  In  his  youth  Sicily 
and  Syracuse  were  disturbed  by  civil  and  foreign 
wars,  wars  of  citizens  against  citizens,  of  Greeks 
against  Carthaginians,  and  against  the  fierce 
'  men  of  Mars,'  the  banded  mercenaries  who 
possessed  themselves  of  Messana.  But  this 
was  not  matter  for  his  joyous  Muse  — 

KCIVOS  d'  01)  iro\t/j.ovs,  ov  SaKpva,  lldva  S'  fyieXire, 
Kal  fiovTas  tXtyaive  nal  aeiduv 


'  Not  of  wars,  not  of  tears,  but  of  Pan  would  he 
chant,  and  of  the  neatherds  he  sweetly  sang,  and 
singing  he  shepherded  his  flocks.' 

This  was  the  training  that  Sicily,  her  hills, 
her  seas,  her  lovers,  her  poet-  shepherds,  gave 


xxvi        THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

to  Theocritus.  Sicily  showed  him  subjects 
which  he  imitated  in  truthful  art.  Unluckily 
the  later  pastoral  poets  of  northern  lands  have 
imitated  /tim,  and  so  have  gone  far  astray  from 
northern  nature.  The  pupil  of  nature  had  still 
to  be  taught  the  '  rules '  of  the  critics,  to  watch 
the  temper  and  fashion  of  his  time,  and  to  try 
his  fortune  among  the  courtly  poets  and  gram- 
marians of  the  capital  of  civilisation.  Between 
the  years  of  early  youth  in  Sicily  and  the  years 
of  waiting  for  court  patronage  at  Alexandria, 
it  seems  probable  that  we  must  place  a  period 
of  education  in  the  island  of  Cos.  The  testi- 
monies of  the  Grammarians  who  handed  on  to 
us  the  scanty  traditions  about  Theocritus,  agree 
in  making  him  the  pupil  of  Philetas  of  Cos. 
This  Philetas  was  a  critic,  a  commentator  on 
Homer,  and  an  elegiac  poet  whose  love-songs 
were  greatly  admired  by  the  Romans  of  the 
Augustan  age.  He  is  said  to  have  been  the 
tutor  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  who  was  him- 
self born,  as  Theocritus  records,  in  the  isle  of 
Cos.  It  has  been  conjectured  that  Ptolemy 
and  Theocritus  were  fellow  pupils,  and  that  the 
poet  may  have  hoped  to  obtain  court  favour  at 
Alexandria  from  this  early  connection.  About 
this  point  nothing  is  certainly  known,  nor  can 
we  exactly  understand  the  sort  of  education 
that  was  given  in  the  school  of  the  poet 
Philetas.  The  ideas  of  that  artificial  age  make 
it  not  improbable  that  Philetas  professed  to 
teach  the  art  of  poetry.  A  French  critic  and 
poet  of  our  own  time,  M.  Baudelaire,  was  willing 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE     xxvii 

to  do  as  much  '  in  thirty  lessons.'  Possibly 
Philetas  may  have  imparted  technical  rules 
then  in  vogue,  and  the  fashionable  knack  of 
introducing  obscure  mythological  allusions.  He 
was  a  logician  as  well  as  a  poet,  and  is  fabled 
to  have  died  of  vexation  because  he  could  not 
unriddle  one  of  the  metaphysical  catches  or 
puzzles  of  the  sophists.  His  varied  activity 
seems  to  have  worn  him  to  a  shadow  ;  the  con- 
temporary satirists  bantered  him  about  his  lean- 
ness, and  it  was  alleged  that  he  wore  leaden 
soles  to  his  sandals  lest  the  wind  should  blow 
him,  as  it  blew  the  calves  of  Daphnis  (Idyl  IX) 
over  a  cliff  against  the  rocks,  or  into  the  sea.1 
Philetas  seems  a  strange  master  for  Theocritus, 
but,  whatever  the  qualities  of  the  teacher,  Cos, 
the  home  of  the  luxurious  old  age  of  Meleager, 
was  a  beautiful  school.  The  island  was  one  of 
the  most  ancient  colonies  of  the  Dorians,  and 
the  Syracusan  scholar  found  himself  among  a 
people  who  spoke  his  own  broad  and  liquid 
dialect.  The  sides  of  the  limestone  hills  were 
clothed  with  vines,  and  with  shadowy  plane- 
trees  which  still  attain  extraordinary  size  and 
age,  while  the  wine -presses  where  Demeter 
smiled,  'with  sheaves  and  poppies  in  her  hands,' 
yielded  a  famous  vintage.  The  people  had  a 
soft  industry  of  their  own,  they  fashioned  the 
'  Coan  stuff,'  transparent  robes  for  woman's 
wear,  like  the  vBdnva  j3pdi<r),  the  thin  un- 
dulating tissues  which  Theugenis  was  to  weave 

1  See  Couat,  La  Poesie  Alexandrine,  p.   68  et  seq., 
Paris,  1882. 


xxvm     THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

with  the  ivory  distaff,  the  gift  of  Theocritus. 
As  a  colony  of  Epidaurus,  Cos  naturally  culti- 
vated the  worship  of  Asclepius,  the  divine 
physician,  the  child  of  Apollo.  In  connection 
with  his  worship  and  with  the  clan  of  the 
Asclepiadae  (that  widespread  stock  to  which 
Aristotle  belonged,  and  in  which  the  practice 
of  leechcraft  was  hereditary),  Cos  possessed  a 
school  of  medicine.  In  the  temple  of  Asclepius 
patients  hung  up  as  votive  offerings  representa- 
tions of  their  diseased  limbs,  and  thus  the 
temple  became  a  museum  of  anatomical  speci- 
mens. Cos  was  therefore  resorted  to  by  young 
students  from  all  parts  of  the  East,  and 
Theocritus  cannot  but  have  made  many  friends 
of  his  own  age.  Among  these  he  alludes  in 
various  passages  to  Nicias,  afterwards  a  phy- 
sician at  Miletus,  to  Philinus,  noted  in  later 
life  as  the  head  of  a  medical  sect,  and  to 
Aratus.  Theocritus  has  sung  of  Aratus's  love- 
affairs,  and  St.  Paul  has  quoted  him  as  a 
witness  to  man's  instinctive  consent  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  universal  fatherhood  of  God. 
These  strangely  various  notices  have  done 
more  for  the  memory  of  Aratus  than  his  own 
didactic  poem  on  the  meteorological  theories 
of  his  age.  He  lives,  with  Philinus  and  the 
rest  of  the  Coan  students,  because  Theocritus 
introduced  them  into  the  picture  of  a  happy 
summer's  day.  In  the  seventh  idyl,  that  one 
day  of  Demeter's  harvest-feast  is  immortal,  and 
the  sun  never  goes  down  on  its  delight.  We 
see  Theocritus 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE      xxix 

KOVTTW  TO.V  /j.fffdTav  686v  dviifj.es,  oiidf  TO  ffdfj.a 
afuv  TO  BpcuriXa  KaretpaivfTo — 

when  he  '  had  not  yet  reached  the  mid-point  of 
the  way,  nor  had  the  tomb  yet  risen  on  his 
sight.'  He  reveals  himself  as  he  was  at  the 
height  of  morning,  at  the  best  moment  of  the 
journey,  in  midsummer  of  a  genius  still  un- 
checked by  doubt,  or  disappointment,  or  neglect. 
Life  seems  to  accost  him  with  the  glance  of  the 
goatherd  Lycidas,  '  and  still  he  smiled  as  he 
spoke,  with  laughing  eyes,  and  laughter  dwell- 
ing on  his  lips.'  In  Cos,  Theocritus  found 
friendship,  and  met  Myrto,  '  the  girl  he  loved 
as  dearly  as  goats  love  the  spring.'  Here  he 
could  express,  without  any  afterthought,  an  en- 
thusiastic adoration  for  the  disinterested  joys, 
the  enchanted  moments  of  human  existence. 
Before  he  entered  the  thronged  streets  of  Alex- 
andria, and  tuned  his  shepherd's  pipe  to  catch 
the  ear  of  princes,  and  to  sing  the  epithalamium 
of  a  royal  and  incestuous  love,  he  rested  with 
his  friends  in  the  happy  island.  Deep  in  a 
cave,  among  the  ruins  of  ancient  aqueducts, 
there  still  bubbles  up,  from  the  Coan  limestone, 
the  wellspring  of  the  Nymphs.  'There  they 
reclined  on  beds  of  fragrant  rushes,  lowly 
strown,  and  rejoicing  they  lay  in  new  stript 
leaves  of  the  vine.  And  high  above  their 
heads  waved  many  a  poplar,  many  an  elm- 
tree,  while  close  at  hand  the  sacred  water  from 
the  nymph's  own  cave  welled  forth  with  mur- 
murs musical'  (Idyl  VII). 


xxx        THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

The  old  Dorian  settlers  in  Syracuse  pleased 
themselves  with  the  fable  that  their  fountain, 
Arethusa,  had  been  a  Grecian  nymph,  who, 
like  themselves,  had  crossed  the  sea  to  Sicily. 
The  poetry  of  Theocritus,  read  or  sung  in 
sultry  Alexandria,  must  have  seemed  like  a 
new  welling  up  of  the  waters  of  Arethusa  in 
the  sandy  soil  of  Egypt.  We  cannot  certainly 
say  when  the  poet  first  came  from  Syracuse,  or 
from  Cos,  to  Alexandria.  It  is  evident  how- 
ever from  the  allusions  in  the  fifteenth  and 
seventeenth  idyls  that  he  was  living  there  after 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus  married  his  own  sister, 
Arsinoe.  It  is  not  impossible  to  form  some 
idea  of  the  condition  of  Alexandrian  society, 
art,  religion,  literature  and  learning  at  the  court 
of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus.  The  vast  city,  founded 
some  sixty  years  before,  was  now  completed. 
The  walls,  many  miles  in  circuit,  protected  a 
population  of  about  eight  hundred  thousand 
souls.  Into  that  changing  crowd  were  gathered 
adventurers  from  all  the  known  world.  Mer- 
chantmen brought  to  Ptolemy  the  wares  of 
India  and  the  porcelains  of  China.  Marauders 
from  upper  Egypt  skulked  about  the  native 
quarters,  and  sallied  forth  at  night  to  rob  the 
wayfarer.  The  king's  guards  were  recruited 
with  soldiers  from  turbulent  Greece,  from  Asia, 
from  Italy.  Settlers  were  attracted  from  Syra- 
cuse by  the  prospect  of  high  wages  and  profit- 
able labour.  The  Jewish  quarters  were  full  of 
Israelites  who  did  not  disdain  Greek  learning. 
The  city  in  which  this  multitude  found  a  home 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE      xxxi 

was  beautifully  constructed.  The  Mediterranean 
filled  the  northern  haven,  the  southern  walls 
were  washed  by  the  Mareotic  lake.  If  the  isle 
of  Pharos  shone  dazzling  white,  and  wearied 
the  eyes,  there  was  shade  beneath  the  long 
marble  colonnades,  and  in  the  groves  and  cool 
halls  of  the  Museum  and  the  Libraries.  The 
Etesian  winds  blew  fresh  in  summer  from  the 
north,  across  the  sea,  and  refreshed  the  people 
in  their  gardens.  No  town  seemed  greater  nor 
wealthier  to  the  voyager,  who  (like  the  hero  of 
the  Greek  novel  Clitophon  and  Leucippe)  entered 
by  the  gate  of  the  Sun,  and  found  that,  after 
nightfall,  the  torches  borne  by  men  and  women 
hastening  to  some  religious  feast,  filled  the 
dusk  with  a  light  like  that  of  '  the  sun  cut  up 
into  fragments.'  At  the  same  time  no  town 
was  more  in  need  of  the  memories  of  the 
country,  which  came  to  her  in  well  -  watered 
gardens,  in  landscape  -  paintings,  and  in  the 
verse  of  Theocritus. 

It  is  impossible  to  give  a  clearer  idea  of  the 
opulence  and  luxury  of  Alexandria  and  her 
kings,  than  will  be  conveyed  by  the  description 
of  the  coronation-feast  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus. 
This  great  masquerade  and  banquet  was  pre- 
pared by  the  elder  Ptolemy  on  the  occasion  of 
his  admitting  his  son  to  share  his  throne.  The 
entertainment  was  described  (in  a  work  now 
lost)  by  Callixenus  of  Rhodes,  and  the  record 
has  been  preserved  by  Atheneaus  (v.  25).  The 
inner  pavilion  in  which  the  guests  of  Ptolemy 
reclined,  contained  one  hundred  and  thirty-five 


xxxn      THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

couches.  Over  the  roof  was  placed  a  scarlet 
awning,  with  a  fringe  of  white,,  and  there  were 
many  other  awnings,  richly  embroidered  with 
mythological  designs.  The  pillars  which  sus- 
tained the  roof  were  shaped  in  the  likeness  of 
palm-trees,  and  of  thyrsi,  the  weapons  of  the 
wine-god  Dionysus.  Round  three  outer  sides 
ran  arcades,  draped  with  purple  tissues,  and 
with  the  skins  of  strange  beasts.  The  fourth 
side,  open  to  the  air,  was  shady  with  the  foliage 
of  myrtles  and  laurels.  Everywhere  the  ground 
was  carpeted  with  flowers,  though  the  season 
was  mid-winter,  with  roses  and  white  lilies  and 
blossoms  of  the  gardens.  By  the  columns 
round  the  whole  pavilion  were  arrayed  a 
hundred  effigies  in  marble,  executed  by  the 
most  famous  sculptors,  and  on  the  middle 
spaces  were  hung  works  by  the  painters  of 
Sicyon  and  tapestry  woven  with  stories  of  the 
adventures  of  the  gods.  Above  these,  again, 
ran  a  frieze  of  gold  and  silver  shields,  while  in 
the  higher  niches  were  placed  comic,  tragic, 
and  satiric  sculptured  groups  '  dressed  in  real 
clothes,'  says  the  historian,  much  admiring  this 
realism.  It  is  impossible  to  number  the  tripods, 
and  flagons,  and  couches  of  gold,  resting  on 
golden  figures  of  sphinxes,  the  salvers,  the 
bcrwls,  the  jewelled  vases.  The  masquerade 
of  this  winter  festival  began  with  the  procession 
of  the  Morning  -  star,  Heosphoros,  and  then 
followed  a  masque  of  kings  and  a  revel  of  vari- 
ous gods,  while  the  company  of  Hesperus,  the 
Evening- star  followed,  and  ended  all.  The 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE    xxxiil 

revel  of  Dionysus  was  introduced  by  men  dis- 
guised as  Sileni,  wild  woodland  beings  in 
raiment  of  purple  and  scarlet.  Then  came 
scores  of  satyrs  with  gilded  lamps  in  their 
hands.  Next  appeared  beautiful  maidens, 
attired  as  Victories,  waving  golden  wings  and 
swinging  vessels  of  burning  incense.  The 
altar  of  the  God  of  the  Vine  was  borne  behind 
them,  crowned  and  covered  with  leaves  of 
gold,  and  next  boys  in  purple  robes  scattered 
fragrant  scents  from  golden  salvers.  Then 
came  a  throng  of  gold -crowned  satyrs,  their 
naked  bodies  stained  with  purple  and  ver- 
milion, and  among  them  was  a  tall  man  who 
represented  the  year  and  carried  a  horn  of 
plenty.  He  was  followed  by  a  beautiful  woman 
in  rich  attire,  carrying  in  one  hand  branches 
of  the  palm-tree,  in  the  other  a  rod  of  the 
peach-tree,  starred  with  its  constellated  flowers. 
Then  the  masque  of  the  Seasons  swept  by,  and 
Philiscus  followed,  Philiscus  the  Corcyraean, 
the  priest  of  Dionysus,  and  the  favourite  tragic 
poet  of  the  court.  After  the  prizes  for  the 
athletes  had  been  borne  past,  Dionysus  him- 
self was  charioted  along,  a  gigantic  figure  clad 
in  purple,  and  pouring  libations  out  of  a  golden 
goblet.  Around  him  lay  huge  drinking -cups, 
and  smoking  censers  of  gold,  and  a  bower  of 
vine  leaves  grew  up,  and  shaded  the  head  of 
the  god.  Then  hurried  by  a  crowd  of  priests 
and  priestesses,  Maenads,  Bacchantes,  Bassa- 
rids,  women  crowned  with  the  vine,  or  with 
garlands  of  snakes,  and  girls  bearing  the  mystic 


xxxiv     THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

vannus  lacchi.  And  still  the  procession  was 
not  ended.  A  mechanical  figure  of  Nysa 
passed,  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  eighty  men, 
among  clusters  of  grapes  formed  of  precious 
stones,  and  the  figure  arose,  and  poured  milk 
out  of  a  golden  horn.  The  Satyrs  and  Sileni 
followed  close,  and  behind  them  six  hundred 
men  dragged  on  a  wain,  a  silver  vessel  that 
held  six  hundred  measures  of  wine.  This  was 
only  the  first  of  countless  symbolic  vessels 
that  were  carried  past,  till  last  came  a  multi- 
tude of  sixteen  hundred  boys  clad  in  white 
tunics,  and  garlanded  with  ivy,  who  bore  and 
handed  to  the  guests  golden  and  silver  vessels 
full  of  sweet  wine.  All  this  was  only  part  of 
one  procession,  and  the  festival  ended  when 
Ptolemy  and  Berenice  and  Ptolemy  Phifa- 
delphus  had  been  crowned  with  golden  crowns 
from  many  subject  cities  and  lands. 

This  festival  was  obviously  arranged  to  please 
the  taste  of  a  prince  with  late  Greek  ideas  of 
pictorial  display,  and  with  barbaric  wealth  at 
his  command.  Theocritus  himself  enables  us 
in  the  seventeenth  idyl  to  estimate  the  opulence 
and  the  dominion  of  Ptolemy.  He  was  not 
master  of  fertile  Aegypt  alone,  where  the  Nile 
breaks  the  rich  dank  soil,  and  where  myriad 
cities  pour  their  taxes  into  his  treasuries. 
Ptolemy  held  lands  also  in  Phoenicia,  and 
Arabia  ;  he  claimed  Syria  and  Libya  and 
Aethiopia  ;  he  was  lord  of  the  distant  Pam- 
phylians,  of  the  Cilicians,  the  Lycians  and  the 
Carians,  and  the  Cyclades  owned  his  mastery. 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE      xxxv 

Thus  the  wealth  of  the  richest  part  of  the 
world  flowed  into  Alexandria,  attracting  thither 
the  priests  of  strange  religions,  the  possessors 
of  Greek  learning,  the  painters  and  sculptors 
whose  work  has  left  its  traces  on  the  genius  of 
Theocritus. 

Looking  at  this  early  Alexandrian  age,  three 
points  become  clear  to  us.  First,  the  fashion 
of  the  times  was  Oriental,  Oriental  in  religion 
and  in  society.  Nothing  could  be  less  Hellenic 
than  the  popular  cult  of  Adonis.  The  fifteenth 
idyl  of  Theocritus  shows  us  Greek  women  wor- 
shipping in  their  manner  at  an  Assyrian  shrine, 
the  shrine  of  that  effeminate  lover  of  Aphrodite, 
whom  Heracles,  according  to  the  Greek  proverb, 
thought  'no  great  divinity.'  The  hymn  of  Bion, 
with  its  luxurious  lament,  was  probably  meant 
to  be  chanted  at  just  such  a  festival  as  Theo- 
critus describes,  while  a  crowd  of  foreigners 
gossiped  among  the  flowers  and  embroideries, 
the  strangely-shaped  sacred  cakes,  the  ebony,  the 
gold,  and  the  ivory.  Not  so  much  Oriental  as 
barbarous  was  the  impulse  which  made  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus  choose  his  own  sister,  Arsinoe, 
for  wife,  as  if  absolute  dominion  had  already 
filled  the  mind  of  the  Macedonian  royal  race 
with  the  incestuous  pride  of  the  Incas,  or  of 
Queen  Hatasu,  in  an  elder  Egyptian  dynasty. 
This  nascent  barbarism  has  touched  a  few  of 
the  Alexandrian  poems  even  of  Theocritus,  and 
his  panegyric  of  Ptolemy,  of  his  divine  ancestors, 
and  his  sister-bride  is  not  much  more  Greek  in 
sentiment  than  are  those  old  native  hymns  of 


xxxvi     THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

Pentaur  to   '  the    strong   Bull,'   or  the    '  Risen 
Sun,'  to  Rameses  or  Thothmes. 

Again,  the  early  Alexandrian  was  what  we 
call  a  '  literary '  age.  Literature  was  not  an 
affair  of  religion  and  of  the  state,  but  ministered 
to  the  pleasure  of  individuals,  and  at  their 
pleasure  was  composed.1  The  temper  of  the 
time  was  crudely  critical.  The  Museum  and 
the  Libraries,  with  their  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  volumes,  were  hot -houses  of  grammarians 
and  of  learned  poets.  Callimachus,  the  head 
librarian,  was  also  the  most  eminent  man  of 
letters.  Unable,  himself,  to  compose  a  poem 
of  epic  length  and  copiousness,  he  discouraged 
all  long  poems.  He  shone  in  epigrams,  pedantic 
hymns,  and  didactic  verses.  He  toyed  with 
anagrams,  and  won  court  favour  by  discover- 
ing that  the  letters  of  'Arsinoe,'  the  name  of 
Ptolemy's  wife,  made  the  words  lav  "Hpas,  the 
violet  of  Hera.  In  another  masterpiece  the 
genius  of  Callimachus  followed  the  stolen  tress 
of  Queen  Berenice  to  the  skies,  where  the  locks 
became  a  constellation.  A  contemporary  of 
Callimachus  was  Zenodotus,  the  critic,  who  was 
for  improving  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  by  cutting 
out  all  the  epic  commonplaces  which  seemed 
to  him  to  be  needless  repetitions.  It  is  pretty 
plain  that,  in  literary  society,  Homer  was 
thought  out  of  date  and  rococo.  The  favourite 
topics  of  poets  were  now,  not  the  tales  of  Troy 
and  Thebes,  but  the  amorous  adventures  of  the 
gods.  When  Apollonius  Rhodius  attempted  to 
1  See  Couat,  op.  cit.  p.  395. 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE  xxxvil 

revive  the  epic,  it  is  said  that  the  influence  of 
Callimachus  quite  discomfited  the  young  poet. 
A  war  of  epigrams  began,  and  while  Apollonius 
called  Callimachus  a  '  blockhead '  (so  finished 
was  his  invective),  the  veteran  compared  his 
rival  to  the  Ibis,  the  scavenger-bird.  Other 
singers  satirised  each  others'  legs,  and  one,  the 
Aretino  of  the  time,  mocked  at  king  Ptolemy 
and  scourged  his  failings  in  verse.  The  literary 
quarrels  (to  which  Theocritus  seems  to  allude 
in  Idyl  VII,  where  Lycidas  says  he  'hates  the 
birds  of  the  Muses  that  cackle  in  vain  rivalry 
with  Homer ')  were  as  stupid  as  such  affairs 
usually  are.  The  taste  for  artificial  epic  was 
to  return  ;  although  many  people  already  de- 
clared that  Homer  was  the  world's  poet,  and 
that  the  world  needed  no  other.  This  epic 
reaction  brought  into  favour  Apollonius  Rhodius, 
author  of  the  Argonautica.  Theocritus  has  been 
supposed  to  aim  at  him  as  a  vain  rival  of  Homer, 
but  M.  Couat  points  out  that  Theocritus  was 
seventy  when  Apollonius  began  to  write.  The 
literary  fashions  of  Alexandria  are  only  of 
moment  to  us  so  far  as  they  directly  affected 
Theocritus.  They  could  not  make  him  obscure, 
affected,  tedious,  but  his  nature  probably  in- 
clined him  to  obey  fashion  so  far  as  only  to 
write  short  poems.  His  rural  poems  are  ei'SuA- 
Aia,  '  little  pictures.'  His  fragments  of  epic, 
or  imitations  of  the  epic  hymns  are  not 

offa.  TTOVTOS  aeidei 
— not  full  and  sonorous  as  the  songs  of  Homer 


xxxvill    THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

and  the  sea.  '  Ce  poete  est  le  moins  naif  qui  se 
puisse  rencontrer,  et  il  se  degage  de  son  oeuvre 
un  parfum  de  naivete  rustique.' l  They  are, 
what  a  German  critic  has  called  them,  niytho- 
logischen  genre-bilder,  cabinet  pictures  in  the 
manner  called  genre,  full  of  pretty  detail  and 
domestic  feeling.  And  this  brings  us  to  the 
third  characteristic  of  the  age,  — -  its  art  was 
elaborately  pictorial.  Poetry  seems  to  have 
sought  inspiration  from  painting,  while  painting, 
as  we  have  said,  inclined  to  genre,  to  luxurious 
representations  of  the  amours  of  the  gods  or 
the  adventures  of  heroes,  with  backgrounds  of 
pastoral  landscape.  Shepherds  fluted  while 
Perseus  slew  Medusa. 

The  old  order  of  things  in  Greece  had  been 
precisely  the  opposite  of  this  Alexandrian 
manner.  Homer  and  the  later  Homeric 
legends,  with  the  tragedians,  inspired  the 
sculptors,  and  even  the  artisans  who  decorated 
vases.  When  a  new  order  of  subjects  became 
fashionable,  and  when  every  rich  Alexandrian 
had  pictures  or  frescoes  on  his  walls,  it  appears 
that  the  painters  took  the  lead,  that  the  initi- 
ative in  art  was  theirs.  The  Alexandrian 
pictures  perished  long  ago,  but  the  relics  of 
Alexandrian  style  which  remain  in  the  buried 
cities  of  Campania,  in  Pompeii  especially,  bear 
testimony  to  the  taste  of  the  period.2  Out  of 
nearly  two  thousand  Pompeian  pictures,  it  is 

1  Couat,  p.  434. 

2  See  Helbig,  Campanische  Wandmalerei,  and  Brann, 
Die  griech ischen  Bnkoliker  tind  die  Ri  Identic  Kunst. 


THEOCRITUS  AATD  HIS  AGE    xxxix 

calculated  that  some  fourteen  hundred  (roughly 
speaking)  are  mythological  in  subject.  The 
loves  of  the  gods  are  repeated  in  scores  of 
designs,  and  these  designs  closely  correspond 
to  the  mythological  poems  of  Theocritus  and 
his  younger  contemporaries  Bion  and  Moschus. 
Take  as  an  example  the  adventure  of  Europa  : 
Lord  Tennyson's  lines,  in  The  Palace  of  Art 
are  intended  to  describe  a  picture — 

'  Or  sweet  Europa's  mantle  blew  unclasp'd, 
From  off  her  shoulder  backward  borne  : 
From  one  hand  droop'd  a  crocus  :  one  hand  grasp'd 
The  mild  bull's  golden  horn.' 

The  words  of  Moschus  also  seem  as  if  they 
might  have  derived  their  inspiration  from  a 
painting,  the  touches  are  so  minute,  and  so 
picturesque — 

'  Meanwhile  Europa,  riding  on  the  back  of 
the  divine  bull,  with  one  hand  clasped  the 
beast's  great  horn,  and  with  the  other  caught 
up  her  garment's  purple  fold,  lest  it  might  trail 
and  be  drenched  in  the  hoar  sea's  infinite  spray. 
And  her  deep  robe  was  blown  out  in  the  wind, 
like  the  sail  of  a  ship,  and  lightly  ever  it  wafted 
the  maiden  onward.' 

Now  every  single  'motive'  of  this  description, 
— Europa  with  one  hand  holding  the  bull's 
horn,  with  the  other  lifting  her  dress,  the  wind 
puffing  out  her  shawl  like  a  sail,  is  repeated  in 
the  Pompeian  wall-pictures,  which  themselves 
are  believed  to  be  derived  from  Alexandrian 
originals.  There  are  more  curious  coincidences 


xl  THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

than  this.  In  the  sixth  idyl  of  Theocritus, 
Damoetas  makes  the  Cyclops  say  that  Galatea 
'  will  send  him  many  a  messenger.'  The  mere 
idea  of  describing  the  monstrous  cannibal  Poly- 
phemus in  love,  is  artificial  and  Alexandrian. 
But  who  were  the  '  messengers '  of  the  sea- 
nymph  Galatea?  A  Pompeian  picture  illustrates 
the  point,  by  representing  a  little  Love  riding 
up  to  the  shore  on  the  back  of  a  dolphin,  with 
a  letter  in  his  hand  for  Polyphemus.  Greek 
art  in  Egypt  suffered  from  an  Egyptian  plague 
of  Loves.  Loves  flutter  through  the  Pompeian 
pictures  as  they  do  through  the  poems  of  Mos- 
chus  and  Bion.  They  are  carried  about  in 
cages,  for  sale,  like  birds.  They  are  caught  in 
bird-traps.  They  don  the  lion-skin  of  Heracles. 
They  flutter  about  baskets  laden  with  roses  ; 
round  rosy  Loves,  like  the  cupids  of  Boucher. 
They  are  not  akin  to  '  the  grievous  Love,'  the 
mighty  wrestler  who  threw  Daphnis  a  fall,  in 
the  first  idyl  of  Theocritus.  They  are  '  the 
children  that  flit  overhead,  the  little  Loves, 
like  the  young  nightingales  upon  the  budding 
trees,'  which  flit  round  the  dead  Adonis  in  the 
fifteenth  idyl.  They  are  the  birds  that  shun 
the  boy  fowler,  in  Bion's  poem,  and  perch 
uncalled  (as  in  a  bronze  in  the  Uffizi)  on  the 
grown  man.  In  one  or  other  of  the  sixteen 
Pompeian  pictures  of  Venus  and  Adonis,  the 
Loves  are  breaking  their  bows  and  arrows  for 
grief,  as  in  the  hymn  of  Bion. 

Enough   has   perhaps  been   said   about   the 
social  and  artistic  taste  of  Alexandria  to  account 


THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE          xli 

for  the  remarkable  differences  in  manner  be- 
tween the  rustic  idyls  of  Theocritus  and  the 
epic  idyls  of  himself  and  his  followers  Moschus 
and  Bion.  In  the  rural  idyls,  Theocritus  was 
himself,  and  wrote  to  please  himself.  In  the 
epic  idyls,  as  in  the  Hymn  to  the  Dioscuri, 
and  in  the  two  poems  on  Heracles,  he  was 
writing-  to  please  the  taste  of  Alexandria.  He 
had  to  choose  epic  topics,  but  he  was  warned 
by  the  famous  saying  of  Callimachus  ('a  great 
book  is  a  great  evil ')  not  to  imitate  the  length 
of  the  epic.1  He  was  also  to  shun  close  imita- 
tion of  what  are  so  easily  imitated,  the  regular 
recurring  fonmilae,  the  commonplace  of  Homer. 
He  was  to  add  minute  pictorial  touches,  as  in 
the  description  of  Alcmena's  waking  when  the 
serpents  attacked  her  child, — a  passage  rich  in 
domestic  pathos  and  incident  which  contrast 
strongly  with  Pindar's  bare  narrative  of  the 
same  events.  We  have  noted  the  same  pictorial 
quality  in  the  Europa  of  Moschus.  Our  own 
age  has  often  been  compared  to  the  Alexandrian 
epoch,  to  that  era  of  large  cities,  wealth,  refine- 
ment, criticism,  and  science  ;  and  the  pictorial 
Idylls  of  Ike  King  very  closely  resemble  the 
epico-idyllic  manner  of  Alexandria.  We  have 
tried  to  examine  the  society  in  which  Theocritus 
lived.  But  our  impressions  about  the  poet  are 
more  distinct.  In  him  we  find  the  most  genial 
character  ;  pious  as  Greece  counted  piety  ; 

1  The  Hecale  of  Callimachus,  or  Theseus  and  the 
Marathonian  Bull,  seems  to  have  been  rather  a  heroic 
idyl  than  an  epic. 


xlii          THEOCRITUS  AND  HIS  AGE 

tender  as  became  the  poet  of  love  ;  glad  as 
the  singer  of  a  happy  southern  world  should 
be  ;  gifted,  above  all,  with  humour,  and  with 
dramatic  power.  '  His  lyre  has  all  the  chords'; 
his  is  the  last  of  all  the  perfect  voices  of  Hellas ; 
after  him  no  man  saw  life  with  eyes  so  steady 
and  so  mirthful. 

About  the  lives  of  the  three  idyllic  poets 
literary  history  says  little.  About  their  deaths 
she  only  tells  us  through  the  dirge  by  Moschus, 
that  Bion  was  poisoned.  The  lovers  of  Theo- 
critus would  willingly  hope  that  he  returned 
from  Alexandria  to  Sicily,  about  the  time  when 
he  wrote  the  sixteenth  idyl,  and  that  he  lived 
in  the  enjoyment  of  the  friendship  and  the 
domestic  happiness  and  honour  which  he  sang 
so  well,  through  the  golden  age  of  Hiero  (264 
B.C.)  No  happier  fortune  could  befall  him 
who  wrote  the  epigram  of  the  lady  of  heavenly 
love,  who  worshipped  with  the  noble  wife  of 
Nicias  under  the  green  roof  of  Milesian  Aphro- 
dite, and  who  prophesied  of  the  return  of  peace 
and  of  song  to  Sicily  and  Syracuse. 


THEOCRITUS 


3E  B 


THEOCRITUS 


IDYL    I 

The  shepherd  Thyrsis  meets  a  goatherd,  in  a  shady  place 
beside  a  spring,  and  at  his  invitation  sings  the  Song 
of  Daphnis.  This  ideal  hero  of  Greek  pastoral  song 
had  -won  for  his  bride  the  fairest  of  the  Nymphs. 
Confident  in  the  strength  of  his  passion,  he  boasted 
that  Love  could  never  subdue  him  to  a  nnu  affection. 
Love  avenged  himself  by  making  Daphnis  desire  a 
strange  maiden,  but  to  this  temptation  he  never 
yielded,  and  so  died  a  constant  lover.  The  song 
tells  how  the  cattle  and  the  wild  things  of  the  wood 
bewailed  him,  how  Hermes  and  Priapus  gave  him 
counsel  in  vain,  and  how  with  his  last  breath  he 
retorted  the  taunts  of  the  implacable  Aphrodite.. 

The  scene  is  In  Sicily. 

Thyrsis.  Sweet,  meseems,  is  the  whispering 
sound  of  yonder  pine  tree,  goatherd,  that  mur- 
mureth  by  the  wells  of  water  ;  and  sweet  are 
thy  pipings.  After  Pan  the  second  prize  shalt 
thou  bear  away,  and  if  he  take  the  horne'd 
goat,  the  she-goat  shalt  thou  win  ;  but  if  he 
choose  the  she -goat  for  his  meed,  the  kid 


4  THEOCRITUS 

falls  to  thee,  and  dainty  is  the  flesh  of  kids 
e'er  the  age  when  thou  milkest  them. 

The  Goatfierd.  Sweeter,  O  shepherd,  is  thy 
song  than  the  music  of  yonder  water  that  is 
poured  from  the  high  face  of  the  rock  !  Yea, 
if  the  Muses  take  the  young  ewe  for  their 
gift,  a  stall-fed  lamb  shalt  thou  receive  for  thy 
meed  ;  but  if  it  please  them  to  take  the  lamb, 
thou  shalt  lead  away  the  ewe  for  the  second 
prize. 

Thyrsis.  Wilt  thou,  goatherd,  in  the  nymphs' 
name,  wilt  thou  sit  thee  down  here,  among 
the  tamarisks,  on  this  sloping  knoll,  and  pipe 
while  in  this  place  I  watch  thy  flocks  ? 

Goatherd.  Nay,  shepherd,  it  may  not  be  ; 
we  may  not  pipe  in  the  noontide.  Tis  Pan 
we  dread,  who  truly  at  this  hour  rests  weary 
from  the  chase  ;  and  bitter  of  mood  is  he, 
the  keen  wrath  sitting  ever  at  his  nostrils. 
But,  Thyrsis,  for  that  thou  surely  wert  wont 
to  sing  Tlie  Affliction  of  Daphnis,  and  hast 
most  deeply  meditated  the  pastoral  muse, 
come  hither,  and  beneath  yonder  elm  let  us 
sit  down,  in  face  of  Priapus  and  the  fountain 
fairies,  where  is  that  resting-place  of  the 
shepherds,  and  where  the  oak  trees  are.  Ah  ! 
if  thou  wilt  but  sing  as  on  that  day  thou 
sangest  in  thy  match  with  Chromis  out  of 
Libya,  I  will  let  thee  milk,  ay,  three  times,  a 
goat  that  is  the  mother  of  twins,  and  even 
when  she  has  suckled  her  kids  her  milk  doth 
fill  two  pails.  A  deep  bowl  of  ivy-wood,  too, 
I  will  give  thee,  rubbed  with  sweet  bees'-wax,  a 


IDYL  1  5 

tvvy-eared  bowl  newly  wrought,  smacking  still 
of  the  knife  of  the  graver.  Round  its  upper 
edges  goes  the  ivy  winding,  ivy  besprent  with 
golden  flowers  ;  and  about  it  is  a  tendril  twisted 
that  joys  in  its  saffron  fruit.  Within  is  de- 
signed a  maiden,  as  fair  a  thing  as  the  gods 
could  fashion,  arrayed  in  a  sweeping  robe,  and 
a  snood  on  her  head.  Beside  her  two  youths 
with  fair  love-locks  are  contending  from  either 
side,  with  alternate  speech,  but  her  heart 
thereby  is  all  untouched.  And  now  on  one 
she  glances,  smiling,  and  anon  she  lightly 
flings  the  other  a  thought,  while  by  reason  of 
the  long  vigils  of  love  their  eyes  are  heavy,  but 
their  labour  is  all  in  vain. 

Beyond  these  an  ancient  fisherman  and  a 
rock  are  fashioned,  a  rugged  rock,  whereon 
with  might  and  main  the  old  man  drags  a 
great  net  for  his  cast,  as  one  that  labours 
stoutly.  Thou  wouldst  say  that  he  is  fishing 
with  all  the  might  of  his  limbs,  so  big  the 
sinews  swell  all  about  his  neck,  grey-haired 
though  he  be,  but  his  strength  is  as  the  strength 
of  youth.  Now  divided  but  a  little  space  from 
the  sea-worn  old  man  is  a  vineyard  laden  well  with 
fire-red  clusters,  and  on  the  rough  wall  a  little 
lad  watches  the  vineyard,  sitting  there.  Round 
him  two  she-foxes  are  skulking,  and  one  goes 
along  the  vine-rows  to  devour  the  ripe  grapes, 
and  the  other  brings  all  her  cunning  to  bear 
against  the  scrip,  and  vows  she  will  never 
leave  the  lad,  till  she  strand  him  bare  and 
breakfastless.  But  the  boy  is  plaiting  a  pretty 


6  THEOCRH^US 

locust-cage  with  stalks  of  asphodel,  and  fitting 
it  with  reeds,  and  less  care  of  his  scrip  has 
he,  and  of  the  vines,  than  delight  in  his 
plaiting. 

All  about  the  cup  is  spread  the  soft  acanthus, 
a  miracle  of  varied  work,1  a  thing  for  thee  to 
marvel  on.  For  this  bowl  I  paid  to  a  Caly- 
donian  ferryman  a  goat  and  a  great  white 
cream  cheese.  Never  has  its  lip  touched  mine, 
but  it  still  lies  maiden  for  me.  Gladly  with 
this  cup  would  I  gain  thee  to  my  desire,  if  thou, 
my  friend,  wilt  sing  me  that  delightful  song. 
Nay,  I  grudge  it  thee  not  at  all.  Begin,  my 
friend,  for  be  sure  thou  canst  in  no  wise  carry 
thy  song  with  thee  to  Hades,  that  puts  all 
things  out  of  mind  ! 

The  Song  of  Thyrsis, 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song ! 
Thyrsis  of  Etna  am  I,  and  this  is  the  voice  of 
Thyrsis.  Where,  ah !  where  were  ye  when 
Daphnis  was  languishing  ;  ye  Nymphs,  where 
were  ye  ?  By  Peneus's  beautiful  dells,  or  by 
dells  of  Pindus  ?  for  surely  ye  dwelt  not  by  the 
great  stream  of  the  river  Anapus,  nor  on  the 
watch-tower  of  Etna,  nor  by  the  sacred  water 
of  Acis. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

For  him  the  jackals,  for  him  the  wolves  did 
cry  ;  for  him  did  even  the  lion  out  of  the  forest 

1  Or,  reading  AloXiKov  —  Aeolian,  c-f.  Thucyd.  iii.  102. 


IDYL  I  7 

lament.  Kine  and  bulls  by  his  feet  right  many, 
and  heifers  plenty,  with  the  young  calves  be- 
wailed him. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song ! 

Came  Hermes  first  from  the  hill,  and  said, 
'  Daphnis,  who  is  it  that  torments  thee  ;  child, 
whom  dost  thou  love  with  so  great  desire  ? ' 
The  neatherds  came,  and  the  shepherds  ;  the 
goatherds  came :  all  they  asked  what  ailed 
him.  Came  also  Priapus, — 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song .' 

And  said  :  '  Unhappy  Daphnis,  wherefore 
dost  thou  languish,  while  for  thee  the  maiden 
by  all  the  fountains,  through  all  the  glades  is 
fleeting,  in  search  of  thee  ?  Ah  !  thou  art  too 
laggard  a  lover,  and  thou  nothing  availest ! 
A  neatherd  wert  thou  named,  and  now  thou 
art  like  the  goatherd  : 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

'  For  the  goatherd,  when  he  marks  the 
young  goats  at  their  pastime,  looks  on  with 
yearning  eyes,  and  fain  would  be  even  as  they; 
and  thou,  when  thou  beholdest  the  laughter  of 
maidens,  dost  gaze  with  yearning  eyes,  for  that 
thou  dost  not  join  their  dances.' 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

Yet  these  the  herdsman  answered  not  again, 
but  he  bare  his  bitter  love  to  the  end,  yea,  to 
the  fated  end  he  bare  it. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 


8  THEOCRITUS 

Ay,  but  she  too  came,  the  sweetly  smiling 
Cypris,  craftily  smiling  she  came,  yet  keeping 
her  heavy  anger ;  and  she  spake,  saying : 
'  Daphnis,  methinks  thou  didst  boast  that 
them  wcmldst  throw  Love  a  fall,  nay,  is  it  not 
thyself  that  hast  been  thrown  by  grievous 
Love  ?' 

Begin,  ye  Muses  (fear,  begin  tJie  pastoral  song! 

But  to  her  Daphnis  answered  again  :  '  Im- 
placable Cypris,  Cypris  terrible,  Cypris  of 
mortals  detested,  already  dost  thou  deem  that 
my  latest  sun  has  set ;  nay,  Daphnis  even  in 
Hades  shall  prove  great  sorrow  to  Love. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

'  Where  it  is  told  how  the  herdsman  with 
Cypris —  Get  thee  to  Ida,  get  thee  to 

Anchises  !  There  are  oak  trees — here  only 
galingale  blows,  here  sweetly  hum  the  bees 
about  the  hives  ! 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song .' 

'  Thine  Adonis,  too,  is  in  his  bloom,  for  he 
herds  the  sheep  and  slays  the  hares,  and  he 
chases  all  the  wild  beasts.  Nay,  go  and  con- 
front Diomedes  again,  and  say,  "  The  herds- 
man Daphnis  I  conquered,  do  thou  join  battle 
with  me." 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral  song! 

'Ye  wolves,  ye  jackals,  and  ye  bears  in 
the  mountain  caves,  farewell !  The  herdsman 
Daphnis  ye  never  shall  see  again,  no  more  in 


IDYL  I  9 

the  dells,  no  more  in  the  groves,  no  more  in 
the  woodlands.  Farewell  Arethusa,  ye  rivers, 
good-night,  that  pour  down  Thymbris  your 
beautiful  waters. 

Begin,  ye  Muses  dear,  begin  the  pastoral 
song  ! 

'  That  Daphnis  am  I  who  here  do  herd  the 
kine,  Daphnis  who  water  here  the  bulls  and 
calves. 

'  O  Pan,  Pan !  whether  thou  art  on  the 
high  hills  of  Lycaeus,  or  rangest  mighty 
Maenalus,  haste  hither  to  the  Sicilian  isle ! 
Leave  the  tomb  of  Helice,  leave  that  high  cairn 
of  the  son  of  Lycaon,  which  seems  wondrous 
fair,  even  in  the  eyes  of  the  blessed.1 

Give  o'er,  ye  Muses,  come,  give  o'er  the 
pastoral  song  ! 

'  Come  hither,  my  prince,  and  take  this 
fair  pipe,  honey -breathed  with  wax -stopped 
joints  ;  and  well  it  fits  thy  lip  :  for  verily  I, 
even  I,  by  Love  am  now  haled  to  Hades. 

Give  o'er,  ye  Muses,  come,  give  o'er  the 
pastoral  song  f 

'  Now  violets  bear,  ye  brambles,  ye  thorns 
bear  violets  ;  and  let  fair  narcissus  bloom  on 
the  boughs  of  juniper  !  Let  all  things  with 
all  be  confounded, — from  pines  let  men  gather 
pears,  for  Daphnis  is  dying  !  Let  the  stag 

1  These  are  places  famous  in  the  oldest  legends  of 
Arcadia. 


io  THEOCRITUS 

drag  down  the  hounds,  let  owls  from  the  hills 
contend  in  song  with  the  nightingales.' 

Give  o'er,  ye  Muses,  come,  give  o'er  the  pas- 
toral song.' 

So  Daphnis  spake,  and  ended ;  but  fain 
would  Aphrodite  have  given  him  back  to  life. 
Nay,  spun  was  all  the  thread  that  the  Fates 
assigned,  and  Daphnis  went  down  the  stream. 
The  whirling  wave  closed  over  the  man  the 
Muses  loved,  the  man  not  hated  of  the  nymphs. 

Give  o'er,  ye  Muses,  come,  give  o'er  the  pas- 
toral song.' 

And  thou,  give  me  the  bowl,  and  the  she- 
goat,  that  I  may  milk  her  and  pour  forth  a 
libation  to  the  Muses.  Farewell,  oh,  farewells 
manifold,  ye  Muses,  and  I,  some  future  day, 
will  sing  you  yet  a  sweeter  song. 

The  Goatherd.  Filled  may  thy  fair  mouth  be 
with  honey,  Thyrsis,  and  filled  with  the  honey- 
comb ;  and  the  sweet  dried  fig  mayst  thou  eat 
of  Aegilus,  for  thou  vanquishest  the  cicala  in 
song  !  Lo  here  is  thy  cup,  see,  my  friend,  of 
how  pleasant  a  savour  !  Thou  wilt  think  it 
has  been  dipped  in  the  well-spring  of  the 
Hours.  Hither,  hither,  Cissaetha :  do  thou 
milk  her,  Thyrsis.  And  you  young  she-goats, 
wanton  not  so  wildly  lest  you  bring  up  the  he- 
goat  against  you. 


IDYL    II 

Simaetha,  madly  in  love  with  Delphis,  who  has  for- 
saken her,  endeavours  to  subdue  him  to  her  by 
magic,  and  by  invoking  the  Moon,  in  her  character 
of  Hecate,  and  of  Selene.  S/ie  tells  the  tale  of  the 
growth  of  her  passion,  and  vows  vengeance  if  her 
magic  arts  are  unsuccessful. 

The  scene  is  probably  some  garden  beneath  the  moonlit 
sky,  near  the  town,  and  within  sound  of  the  sea. 
T/ie  characters  are  Simaetha,  and  Thestylis,  her 
handmaid. 

WHERE  are  my  laurel  leaves  ?  come,  bring 
them,  Thestylis ;  and  where  are  the  love- 
charms  ?  Wreath  the  bowl  with  bright -red 
wool,  that  I  may  knit  the  witch-knots  against 
my  grievous  lover,1  who  for  twelve  days,  oh 
cruel,  has  never  come  hither,  nor  knows 
whether  I  am  alive  or  dead,  nor  has  once 
knocked  at  my  door,  unkind  that  he  is  !  Hath 
Love  flown  off  with  his  light  desires  by  some 
other  path — Love  and  Aphrodite?  To-mor- 
row I  will  go  to  the  wrestling  school  of  Tima- 
getus,  to  see  my  love  and  to  reproach  him  with 
all  the  wrong  he  is  doing  me.  But  now  I  will 

1  Reading  KaTadr/ffo/mai.       Cf.    Fritzsche's  note,   and 
Harpocration,  s.v. 


12  THEOCRITUS 

bewitch  him  with  my  enchantments  !  Do  thou, 
Selene,  shine  clear  and  fair,  for  softly,  God- 
dess, to  thee  will  I  sing,  and  to  Hecate  of  hell. 
The  very  whelps  shiver  before  her  as  she  fares 
through  black  blood  and  across  the  barrows  of 
the  dead. 

Hail,  awful  Hecate  !  to  the  end  be  thou  of 
our  company,  and  make  this  medicine  of  mine 
no  weaker  than  the  spells  of  Circe,  or  of 
Medea,  or  of  Perimede  of  the  golden  hair. 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love  ! 

Lo,  how  the  barley  grain  first  smoulders  in 
the  fire, — nay,  toss  on  the  barley,  Thestylis  ! 
Miserable  maid,  where  are  thy  wits  wandering  ? 
Even  to  thee,  wretched  that  I  am,  have  I  be- 
come a  laughing-stock,  even  to  thee  ?  Scatter 
the  grain,  and  cry  thus  the  while,  '  'Tis  the 
bones  of  Delphis  I  am  scattering  ! ' 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love  ! 

Delphis  troubled  me,  and  I  against  Delphis 
am  burning  this  laurel ;  and  even  as  it  crackles 
loudly  when  it  has  caught  the  flame,  and  sud- 
denly is  burned  up,  and  we  see  not  even  the 
dust  thereof,  lo,  even  thus  may  the  flesh  of 
Delphis  waste  in  the  burning  ! 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love  ! 

Even  as  I  melt  this  wax,  with  the  god  to 
aid,  so  speedily  may  he  by  love  be  molten,  the 


IDYL  II  13 

Myndian  Delphis  !  And  as  whirls  this  brazen 
wheel,1  so  restless,  under  Aphrodite's  spell,  may 
he  turn  and  turn  about  my  doors. 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love  ! 

Now  will  I  burn  the  husks,  and  thou,  O 
Artemis,  hast  power  to  move  hell's  adamantine 
gates,  and  all  else  that  is  as  stubborn.  Thes- 
tylis,  hark,  'tis  so  ;  the  hounds  are  baying  up 
and  down  the  town  !  The  Goddess  stands 
where  the  three  ways  meet !  Hasten,  and 
clash  the  brazen  cymbals. 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love .' 

Lo,  silent  is  the  deep,  and  silent  the  winds, 
but  never  silent  the  torment  in  my  breast. 
Nay,  I  am  all  on  fire  for  him  that  made  me, 
miserable  me,  no  wife  but  a  shameful  thing,  a 
girl  no  more  a  maiden. 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love  ! 

Three  times  do  I  pour  libation,  and  thrice, 
my  Lady  Moon,  I  speak  this  spell  :  —  Be  it 
with  a  friend  that  he  lingers,  be  it  with  a  leman 
he  lies,  may  he  as  clean  forget  them  as 
Theseus,  of  old,  in  Dia — so  legends  tell — did 
utterly  forget  the  fair-tressed  Ariadne. 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love  ! 

1  On  the  word  p6/u/3os,  see  Lobeck,  Aglaoph.  p.  700  ; 
and  '  The  Bull  Roarer, '  in  the  translator's  Custom  and 
Myth. 


14  THEOCRITUS 

Coltsfoot  is  an  Arcadian  weed  that  maddens, 
on  the  hills,  the  young  stallions  and  fleet-footed 
mares.  Ah  !  even  as  these  may  I  see  Delphis ; 
and  to  this  house  of  mine,  may  he  speed  like  a 
madman,  leaving  the  bright  palaestra. 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  koine  to  me  the  man 
I  love  ! 

This  fringe  from  his  cloak  Delphis  lost ;  that 
now  I  shred  and  cast  into  the  cruel  flame. 
Ah,  ah,  thou  torturing  Love,  why  clingest  thou 
to  me  like  a  leech  of  the  fen,  and  drainest  all 
the  black  blood  from  my  body  ? 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love  ! 

Lo,  I  will  crush  an  eft,  and  a  venomous 
draught  to-morrow  I  will  bring  thee  ! 

But  now,  Thestylis,  take  these  magic  herbs 
and  secretly  smear  the  juice  on  the  jambs  of 
his  gate  (whereat,  even  now,  my  heart  is  cap- 
tive, though  nothing  he  recks  of  me),  and  spit 
and  whisper,  '  'Tis  the  bones  of  Delphis  that 
I  smear.' 

My  magic  wheel,  draw  home  to  me  the  man 
I  love .' 

And  now  that  I  am  alone,  whence  shall  I 
begin  to  bewail  my  love  ?  Whence  shall  I  take 
up  the  tale  :  who  brought  on  me  this  sorrow  ? 
The  maiden-bearer  of  the  mystic  vessel  came 
our  way,  Anaxo,  daughter  of  Eubulus,  to  the 
grove  of  Artemis ;  and  behold,  she  had 
many  other  wild  beasts  paraded  for  that 


IDYL  H  15 

time,  in  the  sacred  show,  and  among  them  a 
lioness. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

And  the  Thracian  servant  of  Theucharidas, 
— my  nurse  that  is  but  lately  dead,  and  who 
then  dwelt  at  our  doors, — besought  me  and 
implored  me  to  come  and  see  the  show.  And  I 
went  with  her,  wretched  woman  that  I  am,  clad 
about  in  a  fair  and  sweeping  linen  stole,  over 
which  I  had  thrown  the  holiday  dress  of  Clearista. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

Lo  !  I  was  now  come  to  the  mid-point  of 
the  highway,  near  the  dwelling  of  Lycon,  and 
there  I  saw  Delphis  and  Eudamippus  walking 
together.  Their  beards  were  more  golden  than 
the  golden  flower  of  the  ivy ;  their  breasts 
(they  coming  fresh  from  the  glorious  wrestler's 
toil)  were  brighter  of  sheen  than  thyself, 
Selene  ! 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

Even  as  I  looked  I  loved,  loved  madly,  and 
all  my  heart  was  wounded,  woe  is  me,  and  my 
beauty  began  to  wane.  No  more  heed  took 
I  of  that  show,  and  how  I  came  home  I  know 
not;  but  some  parching  fever  utterly  overthrew 
me,  and  I  lay  a-bed  ten  days  and  ten  nights. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  / 


16  THEOCRITUS 

And  oftentimes  my  skin  waxed  wan  as  the 
colour  of  boxwood,  and  all  my  hair  was  falling 
from  my  head,  and  what  was  left  of  me  was 
but  skin  and  bones.  Was  there  a  wizard  to 
whom  I  did  not  seek,  or  a  crone  to  whose 
house  I  did  not  resort,  of  them  that  have  art 
magical  ?  But  this  was  no  light  malady,  and 
the  time  went  fleeting  on. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

Thus  I  told  the  true  story  to  my  maiden,  and 
said,  '  Go,  Thestylis,  and  find  me  some  remedy 
for  this  sore  disease.  Ah  me,  the  Myndian 
possesses  me,  body  and  soul !  Nay,  depart, 
and  watch  by  the  wrestling-ground  of  Tima- 
getus,  for  there  is  his  resort,  and  there  he  loves 
to  loiter. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

'  And  when  thou  art  sure  he  is  alone,  nod 
to  him  secretly,  and  say,  "  Simaetha  bids  thee 
to  come  to  her,"  and  lead  him  hither  privily.' 
So  I  spoke  ;  and  she  went  and  brought  the 
bright-limbed  Delphis  to  my  house.  But  I, 
when  I  beheld  him  just  crossing  the  threshold 
of  the  door,  with  his  light  step, — 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

Grew  colder  all  than  snow,  and  the  sweat 
streamed  from  my  brow  like  the  dank  dews, 
and  I  had  no  strength  to  speak,  nay,  nor  to 


IDYL  II  17 

utter  as  much  as  children  murmur  in  their 
slumber,  calling  to  their  mother  dear  :  and  all 
my  fair  body  turned  stiff  as  a  puppet  of  wax. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

Then  when  he  had  gazed  on  me,  he  that 
knows  not  love,  he  fixed  his  eyes  on  the 
ground,  and  sat  down  on  my  bed,  and  spake 
as  he  sat  him  down  :  '  Truly,  Simaetha,  thou 
didst  by  no  more  outrun  mine  own  coming 
hither,  when  thou  badst  me  to  thy  roof,  than  of 
late  I  outran  in  the  race  the  beautiful  Philinus  : 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

{ For  I  should  have  come  ;  yea,  by  sweet 
Love,  I  should  have  come,  with  friends  of  mine, 
two  or  three,  as  soon  as  night  drew  on,  bearing 
in  my  breast  the  apples  of  Dionysus,  and  on 
my  head  silvery  poplar  leaves,  the  holy  boughs 
of  Heracles,  all  twined  with  bands  of  purple. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

'  And  if  you  had  received  me,  they  would 
have  taken  it  well,  for  among  all  the  youths  un- 
wed I  have  a  name  for  beauty  and  speed  of  foot. 
With  one  kiss  of  thy  lovely  mouth  I  had  been 
content ;  but  an  if  ye  had  thrust  me  forth,  and  the 
door  had  been  fastened  with  the  bar,  then  truly 
should  torch  and  axe  have  broken  in  upon  you. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

C 


1 8  THEOCRITUS 

'  And  now  to  Cypris  first,  methinks,  my 
thanks  are  due,  and  after  Cypris  it  is  thou  that 
hast  caught  me,  lady,  from  the  burning,  in  that 
thou  badst  me  come  to  this  thy  house,  half  con- 
sumed as  I  am  !  Yea,  Love,  'tis  plain,  lights 
oft  a  fiercer  blaze  than  Hephaestus  the  God 
of  Lipara. 

Bethink  thee  of  my  love,  and  'whence  it  came, 
my  Lady  Moon  ! 

'  With  his  madness  dire,  he  scares  both  the 
maiden  from  her  bovver  and  the  bride  from 
the  bridal  bed,  yet  warm  with  the  body  of  her 
lord  ! ' 

So  he  spake,  and  I,  that  was  easy  to  win, 
took  his  hand,  and  drew  him  down  on  the  soft 
bed  beside  me.  And  immediately  body  from 
body  caught  fire,  and  our  faces  glowed  as  they 
had  not  done,  and  sweetly  we  murmured.  And 
now,  dear  Selene,  to  tell  thee  no  long  tale,  the 
great  rites  were  accomplished,  and  we  twain 
came  to  our  desire.  Faultless  was  I  in  his 
sight,  till  yesterday,  and  he,  again,  in  mine. 
But  there  came  to  me  the  mother  of  Philista, 
my  flute  player,  and  the  mother  of  Melixo, 
to-day,  when  the  horses  of  the  Sun  were  climb- 
ing the  sky,  bearing  Dawn  of  the  rosy  arms 
from  the  ocean  stream.  Many  another  thing 
she  told  me  ;  and  chiefly  this,  that  Delphis  is  a 
lover,  and  whom  he  loves  she  vowed  she  knew 
not  surely,  but  this  only,  that  ever  he  filled  up 
his  cup  with  the  unmixed  wine,  to  drink  a  toast 
to  his  dearest.  And  at  last  he  went  off  hastily, 


IDYL  II  19 

saying  that  he  would  cover  with  garlands  the 
dwelling  of  his  love. 

This  news  my  visitor  told  me,  and  she  speaks 
the  truth.  For  indeed,  at  other  seasons,  he 
would  come  to  me  thrice,  or  four  times,  in  the 
day,  and  often  would  leave  with  me  his  Dorian 
oil  flask.  But  now  it  is  the  twelfth  day  since 
I  have  even  looked  on  hii»  !  Can  it  be  that  he 
has  not  some  other  delight,  and  has  forgotten 
me  ?  Now  with  magic  rites  I  will  strive  to 
bind  him,1  but  if  still  he  vexes  me,  he  shall  beat, 
by  the  Fates  I  vow  it,  at  the  gate  of  Hell.  Such 
evil  medicines  I  store  against  him  in  a  certain 
coffer,  the  use  whereof,  my  lady,  an  Assyrian 
stranger  taught  me. 

But  do  thou  farewell,  and  turn  thy  steeds  to 
Ocean,  Lady,  and  my  pain  I  will  bear,  as  even 
till  now  I  have  endured  it.  Farewell,  Selene 
bright  and  fair,  farewell  ye  other  stars,  that 
follow  the  wheels  of  quiet  Night. 

1  Reading  Karadr/crotAai.     Cf.  line  3,  and  note. 


ID¥L    III 

A  goatherd,  leaving  his  goats  to  feed  on  the  hillside,  in 
the  charge  of  Tityrtts,  approaches  the  cavern  of 
Amaryllis,  with  its  veil  of  ferns  and  ivy,  and  at- 
tempts to  win  back  the  heart  of  the  girl  by  song. 
He  mingles  promises  with  harmless  threats,  and  re- 
peats, in  exquisite  verses,  the  names  of  the  famous 
lovers  of  old  days,  Milanion  and  Endymion,  Fail- 
ing to  move  Amaryllis,  the  goatherd  threatens  to 
die  where  he  has  thrown  himself  down,  beneath  the 
trees. 

COURTING  Amaryllis  with  song  I  go,  while  my 
she-goats  feed  on  the  hill,  and  Tityrus  herds 
them.  Ah,  Tityrus,  my  dearly  beloved,  feed 
thou  the  goats,  and  to  the  well-side  lead  them, 
Tityrus,  and  'ware  the  yellow  Libyan  he-goat, 
lest  he  butt  thee  with  his  horns. 

Ah,  lovely  Amaryllis,  why  no  more,  as  of 
old,  dost  thou  glance  through  this  cavern  after 
me,  nor  callest  me,  thy  sweetheart,  to  thy  side. 
Can  it  be  that  thou  hatest  me  ?  Do  I  seem 
snub-nosed,  now  thou  hast  seen  me  near, 
maiden,  and  under-hung  ?  Thou  wilt  make  me 
strangle  myself! 

Lo,  ten  apples  I  bring  thee,  plucked  from 
that  very  place  where  thou  didst  bid  me 


IDYL  III  21 

pluck  them,  and  others  to-morrow  I  will  bring 
thee. 

Ah,  regard  my  heart's  deep  sorrow !  ah, 
would  I  were  that  humming  bee,  and  to  thy 
cave  might  come  dipping  beneath  the  fern  that 
hides  thee,  and  the  ivy  leaves  ! 

Now  know  I  Love,  and  a  cruel  God  is  he. 
Surely  he  sucked  the  lioness's  dug,  and  in  the 
wild  wood  his  mother  reared  him,  whose  fire 
is  scorching  me,  and  bites  even  to  the  bone. 

Ah,  lovely  as  thou  art  to  look  upon,  ah  heart 
of  stone,  ah  dark-browed  maiden,  embrace  me, 
thy  true  goatherd,  that  I  may  kiss  thee,  and 
even  in  empty  kisses  there  is  a  sweet  delight ! 

Soon  wilt  thou  make  me  rend  the  wreath  in 
pieces  small,  the  wreath  of  ivy,  dear  Amaryllis, 
that  I  keep  for  thee,  with  rose-buds  twined, 
and  fragrant  parsley.  Ah  me,  what  anguish  ! 
Wretched  that  I  am,  whither  shall  I  turn  ! 
Thou  dost  not  hear  my  prayer  ! 

I  will  cast  off  my  coat  of  skins,  and  into 
yonder  waves  I  will  spring,  where  the  fisher 
Olpis  watches  for  the  tunny  shoals,  and  even  if 
I  die  not,  surely  thy  pleasure  will  have  been  done. 

I  learned  the  truth  of  old,  when,  amid 
thoughts  of  thee,  I  asked,  '  Loves  she,  loves 
she  not  ? '  and  the  poppy  petal  clung  not,  and 
gave  no  crackling  sound,  but  withered  on  my 
smooth  forearm,  even  so.1 

And  she  too  spoke  sooth,  even  Agroeo,  she 
that  divineth  with  a  sieve,  and  of  late  was  bind- 
ing sheaves  behind  the  reapers,  who  said  that 
1  He  refers  to  a  piece  of  folk-lore. 


22  THEOCRITUS 

I  had  set  all  my  heart  on  thee,  but  that  thou 
didst  nothing  regard  me. 

Truly  I  keep  for  thee  the  white  goat  with 
the  twin  kids  that  Mermnon's  daughter  too, 
the  brown-skinned  Erithacis,  prays  me  to  give 
her  ;  and  give  her  them  I  will,  since  thou  dost 
flout  me. 

My  right  eyelid  throbs,  is  it  a  sign  that  I 
am  to  see  her  ?  Here  will  I  lean  me  against 
this  pine  tree,  and  sing,  and  then  perchance  she 
will  regard  me,  for  she  is  not  all  of  adamant. 

Lo,  Hippomenes  when  he  was  eager  to 
marry  the  famous  maiden,  took  apples  in  his 
hand,  and  so  accomplished  his  course  ;  and 
Atalanta  saw,  and  madly  longed,  and  leaped 
into  the  deep  waters  of  desire.  Melampus  too, 
the  soothsayer,  brought  the  herd  of  oxen  from 
Othrys  to  Pylos,  and  thus  in  the  arms  of  Bias 
was  laid  the  lovely  mother  of  wise  Alphesiboea. 

And  was  it  not  thus  that  Adonis,  as  he 
pastured  his  sheep  upon  the  hills,  led  beautiful 
Cytherea  to  such  heights  of  frenzy,  that  not 
even  in  his  death  doth  she  unclasp  him  from 
her  bosom  ?  Blessed,  methinks  is  the  lot  of 
him  that  sleeps,  and  tosses  not,  nor  turns,  even 
Endymion ;  and,  dearest  maiden,  blessed  I 
call  lason,  whom  such  things  befell,  as  ye  that 
be  profane  shall  never  come  to  know. 

My  head  aches,  but  thou  carest  not.  I  will 
sing  no  more,  but  dead  will  I  lie  where  I  fall, 
and  here  may  the  wolves  devour  me. 

Sweet  as  honey  in  the  mouth  may  my  death 
be  to  thee. 


IDYL    IV 

Battus  and  Corydon,  two  rustic  fellows,  meeting  in  a 
glade,  gossip  about  their  neighbour,  Aegon,  -who  has 
gone  to  try  his  fortune  at  the  Olympic  games.  After 
some  random  banter,  the  talk  turns  on  the  death  of 
Amaryllis,  and  the  grief  of  Battus  is  disturbed  by 
the  roaming  of  his  cattle.  Corydon  removes  a  thorn 
that  has  run  into  his  friend' s  foot,  and  the  conversa- 
tion comes  back  to  matters  of  rural  scandal. 

The  scene  is  in  Southern  Italy. 

Battus.  Tell  me,  Corydon,  whose  kine  are 
these, — the  cattle  of  Philondas  ? 

Corydon.  Nay,  they  are  Aegon's,  he  gave  me 
them  to  pasture. 

Battus.  Dost  thou  ever  find  a  way  to 
milk  them  all,  on  the  sly,  just  before  even- 
ing ? 

Corydon.  No  chance  of  that,  for  the  old 
man  puts  the  calves  beneath  their  dams,  and 
keeps  watch  on  me. 

Battus.  But  the  neatherd  himself, — to  what 
land  has  he  passed  out  of  sight  ? 

Corydon.  Hast  thou  not  heard  ?  Milon 
went  and  carried  him  off  to  the  Alpheus. 

Battus.  And  when,  pray,  did  he  ever  set 
eyes  on  the  wrestlers'  oil  ? 


24  THEOCRITUS 

Corydon.  They  say  he  is  a  match  for 
Heracles,  in  strength  and  hardihood. 

Battus.  And  I,  so  mother  says,  am  a  better 
man  than  Polydeuces. 

Corydon.  Well,  off  he  has  gone,  with  a 
shovel,  and  with  twenty  sheep  from  his  flock 
here.1 

Battus.  Milo,  thoir'lt  see,  will  soon  be  coax- 
ing the  wolves  to  rave  ! 

Corydon.  But  Aegon's  heifers  here  are  low- 
ing pitifully,  and  miss  their  master. 

Battus.  Yes,  wretched  beasts  that  they  are, 
how  false  a  neatherd  was  theirs  ! 

Corydon.  Wretched  enough  in  truth,  and 
they  have  no  more  care  to  pasture. 

Battus.  Nothing  is  left,  now,  of  that  heifer, 
look  you,  bones,  that's  all.  She  does  not  live 
on  dewdrops,  does  she,  like  the  grasshopper  ? 

Corydon.  No,  by  Earth,  for  sometimes  I 
take  her  to  graze  by  the  banks  of  Aesarus,  fair 
handfuls  of  fresh  grass  I  give  her  too,  and 
otherwhiles  she  wantons  in  the  deep  shade 
round  Latymnus. 

Battus.  How  lean  is  the  red  bull  too  !  May 
the  sons  of  Lampriades,  the  burghers  to  wit, 
get  such  another  for  their  sacrifice  to  Hera,  for 
the  township  is  an  ill  neighbour. 

Corydon.  And  yet  that  bull  is  driven  to  the 
mere's  mouth,  and  to  the  meadows  of  Physcus, 
and  to  the  Neaethus,  where  all  fair  herbs  bloom, 
red  goat- wort,  and  endive,  and  fragrant  bees- wort. 

1  The  shovel  was  used  for  tossing  the  sand  of  the 
lists  ;  the  sheep  were  food  for  Aegon's  great  appetite. 


IDYL  IV  25 

Battus.  Ah,  wretched  Aegon,  thy  very  kine 
will  go  to  Hades,  while  thou  too  art  in  love 
with  a  luckless  victory,  and  thy  pipe  is  flecked 
with  mildew,  the  pipe  that  once  thou  madest 
for  thyself! 

Corydon.  Not  the  pipe,  by  the  nymphs,  not 
so,  for  when  he  went  to  'Pisa,  he  left  the  same 
as  a  gift  to  me,  and  I  am  something  of  a  player. 
Well  can  I  strike  up  the  air  of  Glance,  and  well 
the  strain  of  Pyrrhus,  and  the  praise  of  Croton 
I  sing,  and  Zacynthns  is  a  goodly  town,  and 
Lacinium  that  fronts  the  dawn  !  There  Aegon 
the  boxer,  unaided,  devoured  eighty  cakes  to 
his  own  share,  and  there  he  caught  the  bull 
by  the  hoof,  and  brought  him  from  the  moun- 
tain, and  gave  him  to  Amaryllis.  Thereon  the 
women  shrieked  aloud,  and  the  neatherd, — he 
burst  out  laughing. 

Battus.  Ah,  gracious  Amaryllis  !  Thee  alone 
even  in  death  will  we  ne'er  forget.  Dear  to 
me  as  my  goats  wert  thou,  and  thou  art  dead  ! 
Alas,  too  cruel  a  spirit  hath  my  lot  in  his 
keeping. 

Corydon.  Dear  Battus,  thou  must  needs  be 
comforted.  The  morrow  perchance  will  bring 
better  fortune.  The  living  may  hope,  the  dead 
alone  are  hopeless.  Zeus  now  shows  bright 
and  clear,  and  anon  he  rains. 

Battus.  Enough  of  thy  comforting  !  Drive 
the  calves  from  the  lower  ground,  the  cursed 
beasts  are  grazing  on  the  olive-shoots.  Hie  on, 
white  face. 

Corydon.   Out,    Cymaetha,   get    thee   to   the 


26  THEOCRITUS 

hill !  Dost  them  not  hear  ?  By  Pan,  I  will 
soon  come  and  be  the  death  of  you,  if  you  stay 
there  !  Look,  here  she  is  creeping  back  again ! 
Would  I  had  my  crook  for  hare  killing  :  how 
I  would  cudgel  thee. 

Battus.  In  the  name  of  Zeus,  prithee  look 
here,  Corydon  !  A  thorn  has  just  run  into  my 
foot  under  the  ankle.  How  deep  they  grow, 
the  arrow-headed  thorns.  An  ill  end  befall  the 
heifer ;  I  was  pricked  when  I  was  gaping  after 
her.  Prithee  dost  see  it  ? 

Corydon.  Yes,  yes,  and  I  have  caught  it  in 
my  nails,  see,  here  it  is. 

Battus.  How  tiny  is  the  wound,  and  how 
tall  a  man  it  masters  ! 

Corydon.  When  thou  goest  to  the  hill,  go 
not  barefoot,  Battus,  for  on  the  hillside  flourish 
thorns  and  brambles  plenty. 

Battus.  Come,  tell  me,  Corydon,  the  old 
man  now,  does  he  still  run  after  that  little 
black-browed  darling  whom  he  used  to  dote 
on  ? 

Corydon.  He  is  after  her  still,  my  lad  ;  but 
yesterday  I  came  upon  them,  by  the  very  byre, 
and  right  loving  were  they. 

Batttts.  Well  done,  thou  ancient  lover  !  Sure, 
thou  art  near  akin  to  the  satyrs,  or  a  riva1.  of 
the  slim-shanked  Pans  ! l 

1  Reading  tpi 


IDYL   V 

This  Idyl  begins  -with  a  ribald  debate  between  two  hire- 
lings, who,  at  last,  compete  with  each  other  in  a 
match  of  pastoral  song.  No  other  idyl  of  Theo- 
critus is  so  frankly  true  to  the  rough  side  of  rustic 
manners.  The  scene  is  in  Southern  Italy. 

Comatas.  Goats  of  mine,  keep  clear  of  that 
notorious  shepherd  of  Sibyrtas,  that  Lacon  ;  he 
stole  my  goat-skin  yesterday. 

Lacon.  Will  ye  never  leave  the  well-head  ? 
Off,  my  lambs,  see  ye  not  Comatas  ;  him  that 
lately  stole  my  shepherd's  pipe  ? 

Comatas.  What  manner  of  pipe  might  that 
be,  for  when  gat'st  thou  a  pipe,  thou  slave  of 
Sibyrtas  ?  Why  does  it  no  more  suffice  thee 
to  keep  a  flute  of  straw,  and  whistle  with 
Corydon  ? 

Lacon.  What  pipe,  free  sir?  why,  the  pipe 
that  Lycon  gave  me.  And  what  manner  of 
goat-skin  hadst  thou,  that  Lacon  made  off  with? 
Tell  me,  Comatas,  for  truly  even  thy  master, 
Eumarides,  had  never  a  goat-skin  to  sleep  in. 

Comatas.  'Twas  the  skin  that  Crocylus  gave 
me,  the  dappled  one,  when  he  sacrificed  the 
she-goat  to  the  nymphs  ;  but  thou,  wretch, 


28  THEOCRITUS 

even  then  wert  wasting  with  envy,  and  now,  at 
last,  them  hast  stripped  me  bare  ! 

Lacon.  Nay  verily,  so  help  me  Pan  of  the 
seashore,  it  was  not  Lacon  the  son  of  Calaethis 
that  filched  the  coat  of  skin.  If  I  lie,  sirrah, 
may  I  leap  frenzied  down  this  rock  into  the 
Crathis  ! 

Comatas.  Nay  verily,  my  friend,  so  help  me 
these  nymphs  of  the  mere  (and  ever  may  they 
be  favourable,  as  now,  and  kind  to  me),  it  was 
not  Comatas  that  pilfered  thy  pipe. 

Lacon.  If  I  believe  thee,  may  I  suffer  the 
afflictions  of  Daphnis  !  But  see,  if  thou  carest 
to  stake  a  kid — though  indeed  'tis  scarce  worth 
my  while — then,  go  to,  I  will  sing  against  thee, 
and  cease  not,  till  thou  dost  cry  '  enough  ! ' 

Comatas.  The  sow  defied  Athene  !  See,  there 
is  staked  the  kid,  go  to,  do  thou  too  put  a  fatted 
lamb  against  him,  for  thy  stake. 

Lacon.  Thou  fox,  and  where  would  be  our 
even  betting  then  ?  Who  ever  chose  hair  to 
shear,  in  place  of  wool  ?  and  who  prefers  to 
milk  a  filthy  bitch,  when  he  can  have  a  she- 
goat,  nursing  her  first  kid  ? 

Comatas.  Why,  he  that  deems  himself  as 
sure  of  getting  the  better  of  his  neighbour  as 
thou  dost,  a  wasp  that  buzzes  against  the  cicala. 
But  as  it  is  plain  thou  thinkst  the  kid  no  fail- 
stake,  lo,  here  is  this  he-goat.  Begin  the 
match  ! 

Lacon.  No  such  haste,  thou  art  not  on  fire  ! 
More  sweetly  wilt  thou  sing,  if  thou  wilt  sit 
down  beneath  the  wild  olive  tree,  and  the 


IDYL  V  29 

groves  in  this  place.  Chill  water  falls  there, 
drop  by  drop,  here  grows  the  grass,  and  here 
a  leafy  bed  is  strown,  and  here  the  locusts 
prattle. 

Comatas.  Nay,  no  whit  am  I  in  haste,  but 
I  am  sorely  vexed,  that  thou  shouldst  dare  to 
look  me  straight  in  the  face,  thou  whom  I  used 
to  teach  while  thou  wert  still  a  child.  See 
where  gratitude  goes  !  As  well  rear  wolf- 
whelps,  breed  hounds,  that  they  may  devour 
thee  ! 

Lacon.  And  what  good  thing  have  I  to 
remember  that  I  ever  learned  or  heard  from 
thee,  thou  envious  thing,  thou  mere  hideous 
manikin  ! 

But  come  this  way,  come,  and  thou  shalt  sing 
thy  last  of  country  song. 

Comatas.  That  way  I  will  not  go  !  Here  be 
oak  trees,  and  here  the  galingale,  and  sweetly 
here  hum  the  bees  about  the  hives.  There 
are  two  wells  of  chill  water,  and  on  the  tree  the 
birds  are  warbling,  and  the  shadow  is  beyond 
compare  with  that  where  thou  liest,  and  from 
on  high  the  pine  tree  pelts  us  with  her  cones. 

Lacon.  Nay,  but  lambs'  wool,  truly,  and 
fleeces,  shalt  thou  tread  here,  if  thou  wilt  but 
come, — fleeces  more  soft  than  sleep,  but  the 
goat-skins  beside  thee  stink — worse  than  thy- 
self. And  I  will  set  a  great  bowl  of  white  milk 
for  the  nymphs,  and  another  will  I  offer  of 
sweet  olive  oil. 

Comatas.    Nay,  but   an  if  thou  wilt   come, 


30  THEOCRITUS 

thou  shall  tread  here  the  soft  feathered  fern, 
and  flowering  thyme,  and  beneath  thee  shall 
be  strown  the  skins  of  she-goats,  four  times 
more  soft  than  the  fleeces  of  thy  lambs.  And 
I  will  set  out  eight  bowls  of  milk  for  Pan,  and 
eight  bowls  full  of  the  richest  honeycombs. 

Lacon.  Thence,  where  thou  art,  I  pray  thee, 
begin  the  match,  and  there  sing  thy  country 
song,  tread  thine  own  ground  and  keep  thine 
oaks  to  thyself.  But  who,  who  shall  judge 
between  us  ?  Would  that  Lycopas,  the  neat- 
herd, might  chance  to  come  this  way  ! 

Comatas.  I  want  nothing  with  him,  but  that 
man,  if  thou  wilt,  that  woodcutter  we  will  call, 
who  is  gathering  those  tufts  of  heather  near 
thee.  It  is  Morson. 

Lacon.    Let  us  shout,  then  ! 

Comatas.   Call  thou  to  him. 

Lacon.  Ho,  friend,  come  hither  and  listen  for 
a  little  while,  for  we  two  have  a  match  to  prove 
which  is  the  better  singer  of  country  song.  So 
Morson,  my  friend,  neither  judge  me  too  kindly, 
no,  nor  show  him  favour. 

Comatas.  Yes,  dear  Morson,  for  the  nymphs' 
sake  neither  lean  in  thy  judgment  to  Comatas, 
nor,  prithee,  favour  him.  The  flock  of  sheep 
thou  seest  here  belongs  to  Sibyrtas  of  Thurii, 
and  the  goats,  friend,  that  thou  beholdest  are 
the  goats  of  Eumarides  of  Sybaris. 

Lacon.  Now,  in  the  name  of  Zeus  did  any 
one  ask  thee,  thou  make-mischief,  who  owned 
the  flock,  I  or  Sibyrtas  ?  What  a  chatterer 
thou  art ! 


IDYL    V  31 

Cantatas.  Best  of  men,  I  am  for  speaking 
the  whole  truth,  and  boasting  never,  but  thou 
art  too  fond  of  cutting  speeches. 

Lacon.  Come,  say  whatever  thou  hast  to  say, 
and  let  the  stranger  get  home  to  the  city  alive  ; 
oh,  Paean,  what  a  babbler  thou  art,  Comatas  ! 

THE  SINGING  MATCH. 

Comatas.  The  Muses  love  me  better  far  than 
the  minstrel  Daphnis ;  but  a  little  while  ago  I 
sacrificed  two  young  she-goats  to  the  Muses. 

Lacon.  Yea,  and  me  too  Apollo  loves  very 
dearly,  and  a  noble  ram  I  rear  for  Apollo,  for 
the  feast  of  the  Carnea,  look  you,  is  drawing 
nigh. 

Comatas.  The  she-goats  that  I  milk  have  all 
borne  twins  save  two.  The  maiden  saw  me, 
and  '  alas,'  she  cried,  '  dost  thou  milk  alone  ? ' 

Lacon.  Ah,  ah,  but  Lacon  here  hath  nigh 
twenty  baskets  full  of  cheese,  and  Lacon  lies 
with  his  darling  in  the  flowers ! 

Comatas.  Clearista,  too,  pelts  the  goatherd 
with  apples  as  he  drives  past  his  she-goats,  and 
a  sweet  word  she  murmurs. 

Lacon.  And  wild  with  love  am  I  too,  for  my 
fair  young  darling,  that  meets  the  shepherd, 
with  the  bright  hair  floating  round  the  shapely 
neck. 

Comatas.  Nay,  ye  may  not  liken  dog-roses 
to  the  rose,  or  wind-flowers  to  the  roses  of  the 
garden  ;  by  the  garden  walls  their  beds  are 
blossoming. 


32  THEOCRITUS 

Lacon.  Nay,  nor  wild  apples  to  acorns,  for 
acorns  are  bitter  in  the  oaken  rind,  but  apples 
are  sweet  as  honey. 

Comatas.  Soon  will  I  give  my  maiden  a 
ring-dove  for  a  gift ;  I  will  take  it  from  the 
juniper  tree,  for  there  it  is  brooding. 

Lacon.  But  I  will  give  my  darling  a  soft 
fleece  to  make  a  cloak,  a  free  gift,  when  I  shear 
the  black  ewe. 

Comatas.  Forth  from  the  wild  olive,  my 
bleating  she-goats,  feed  here  where  the  hillside 
slopes,  and  the  tamarisks  grow. 

Lacon.  Conarus  there,  and  Cynaetha,  will 
you  never  leave  the  oak  ?  Graze  here,  where 
Phalarus  feeds,  where  the  hillside  fronts  the 
dawn. 

Comatas.  Ay,  and  I  have  a  vessel  of  cypress 
wood,  and  a  mixing  bowl,  the  work  of  Praxi- 
teles, and  I  hoard  them  for  my  maiden. 

Lacon.  I  too  have  a  dog  that  loves  the 
flock,  the  dog  to  strangle  wolves ;  him  I  am 
giving  to  my  darling  to  chase  all  manner  of 
wild  beasts. 

Comatas.  Ye  locusts  that  overleap  our  fence, 
see  that  ye  harm  not  our  vines,  for  our  vines 
are  young. 

Lacon.  Ye  cicalas,  see  how  I  make  the 
goatherd  chafe  :  even  so,  methinks,  do  ye  vex 
the  reapers. 

Comatas.  I  hate  the  foxes,  with  their  bushy 
brushes,  that  ever  come  at  evening,  and  eat  the 
grapes  of  Micon. 

Lacon.     And    I    hate    the    lady-birds     that 


IDYL   V  33 

devour  the  figs  of  Philondas,  and  flit  down  the 
wind. 

Coniatas.  Dost  thou  not  remember  how  I 
cudgelled  thee,  and  thou  didst  grin  and  nimbly 
writhe,  and  catch  hold  of  yonder  oak  ? 

Lacon.  That  I  have  no  memory  of,  but  how 
Eumarides  bound  thee  there,  upon  a  time,  and 
flogged  thee  through  and  through,  that  I  do 
very  well  remember. 

Coniatas.  Already,  Morson,  some  one  is 
waxing  bitter,  dost  thou  see  no  sign  of  it  ?  Go, 
go,  and  pluck,  forthwith,  the  squills  from  some 
old  wife's  grave. 

Lacon.  And  I  too,  Morson,  I  make  some 
one  chafe,  and  thou  dost  perceive  it.  Be  off 
now  to  the  Hales  stream,  and  dig  cyclamen. 

Coniatas.  Let  Himera  flow  with  milk  instead 
of  water,  and  thou,  Crathis,  run  red  with  wine, 
and  all  thy  reeds  bear  apples. 

Lacon.  Would  that  the  fount  of  Sybaris 
may  flow  with  honey,  and  may  the  maiden's 
pail,  at  dawning,  be  dipped,  not  in  water,  but 
in  the  honeycomb. 

Coniatas.  My  goats  eat  cytisus,  and  goats- 
wort,  and  tread  the  lentisk  shoots,  and  lie  at 
ease  among  the  arbutus. 

Lacon.  But  my  ewes  have  honey- wort  to 
feed  on,  and  luxuriant  creepers  flower  around, 
as  fair  as  roses. 

Coniatas.  I  love  not  Alcippe.  for  yesterday 
she  did  not  kiss  me,  and  take  my  face  between 
her  hands,  when  I  gave  her  the  dove. 

Lacon.  But  deeply  I  love  my  darling,  for  a 

D 


34  THEOCRITUS 

kind  kiss  once  I  got,  in  return  for  the  gift  of  a 
shepherd's  pipe. 

Comatas.  Lacon,  it  never  was  right  that 
pyes  should  contend  with  the  nightingale,  nor 
hoopoes  with  swans,  but  thou,  unhappy  swain, 
art  ever  for  contention. 

Morsorfs  Judgment.  I  bid  the  shepherd 
cease.  But  to  thee,  Comatas,  Morson  presents 
the  lamb.  And  thou,  when  thou  hast  sacrificed 
her  to  the  nymphs,  send  Morson,  anon,  a 
goodly  portion  of  her  flesh. 

Comatas.  I  will,  by  Pan.  Now  leap,  and 
snort,  my  he-goats,  all  the  herd  of  you,  and  see 
here  how  loud  I  ever  will  laugh,  and  exult  over 
Lacon,  the  shepherd,  for  that,  at  last,  I  have 
won  the  lamb.  See,  I  will  leap  sky  high  with 
joy.  Take  heart,  my  horned  goats,  to-morrow 
I  will  dip  you  all  in  the  fountain  of  Sybaris. 
Thou  white  he-goat,  I  will  beat  thee  if  thou 
dare  to  touch  one  of  the  herd  before  I  sacrifice 
the  lamb  to  the  nymphs.  There  he  is  at  it 
again !  Call  me  Melanthius,1  not  Comatas,  if 
I  do  not  cudgel  thee. 

1  Melanthius  was  the  treacherous  goatherd  put  to  a 
cruel  death  by  Odysseus. 


IDYL    VI 

Daphnis  and  Damoetas,  two  herdsmen  of  ttie  golden  age, 
meet  by  a  -well-side,  and  sing  a  match,  their  topic  is 
the  Cyclops,  Polyphemus,  and  his  love  for  the  sea- 
nymph,  Galatea. 

The  scene  is  in  Sicily. 

DAMOETAS,  and  Daphnis  the  herdsman,  once 
on  a  time,  Aratus,  led  the  flock  together  into 
one  place.  Golden  was  the  down  on  the  chin 
of  one,  the  beard  of  the  other  was  half-grown, 
and  by  a  well-head  the  twain  sat  them  down, 
in  the  summer  noon,  and  thus  they  sang. 
'Twas  Daphnis  that  began  the  singing,  for  the 
challenge  had  come  from  Daphnis. 

Daphnis 's  Song  of  the  Cyclops. 

Galatea  is  pelting  thy  flock  with  apples,  Poly- 
phemus, she  says  the  goatherd  is  a  laggard 
lover !  And  thou  dost  not  glance  at  her,  oh 
hard,  hard  that  thou  art,  but  still  thou  sittest 
at  thy  sweet  piping.  Ah  see,  again,  she  is 
pelting  thy  dog,  that  follows  thee  to  watch  thy 
sheep.  He  barks,  as  he  looks  into  the  brine, 
and  now  the  beautiful  waves  that  softly  plash 


36  THEOCRITUS 

reveal  him,1  as  he  runs  upon  the  shore.  Take 
heed  that  he  leap  not  on  the  maiden's  limbs  as 
she  rises  from  the  salt  water,  see  that  he  rend 
not  her  lovely  body  !  Ah,  thence  again,  see, 
she  is  wantoning,  light  as  dry  thistle-down  in 
the  scorching  summer  weather.  She  flies  when 
thou  art  wooing  her  ;  when  thou  woo'st  not  she 
pursues  thee,  she  plays  out  all  her  game  and 
leaves  her  king  unguarded.  For  truly  to  Love, 
Polyphemus,  many  a  time  doth  foul  seem  fair ! 

He  ended,  and  Damoetas  touched  a  prelude 
to  his  sweet  song. 

I  saw  her,  by  Pan,  I  saw  her  when  she  was 
pelting  my  flock.  Nay,  she  escaped  not  me, 
escaped  not  my  one  dear  eye,  —  wherewith  I 
shall  see  to  my  life's  end, — let  Telemus  the 
soothsayer,  that  prophesies  hateful  things,  hate- 
ful things  take  home,  to  keep  them  for  his 
children  !  But  it  is  all  to  torment  her,  that 
I,  in  my  turn,  give  not  back  her  glances,  pre- 
tending that  I  have  another  love.  To  hear 
this  makes  her  jealous  of  me,  by  Paean,  and 
she  wastes  with  pain,  and  springs  madly  from 
the  sea,  gazing  at  my  caves  and  at  my  herds. 
And  I  hiss  on  my  dog  to  bark  at  her,  for  when 
I  loved  Galatea  he  would  whine  with  joy,  and 
lay  his  muzzle  on  her  lap.  Perchance  when 
she  marks  how  I  use  her  she  will  send  me 
many  a  messenger,  but  on  her  envoys  I  will 

1  Ameis  and  Fritzsche  take  viv  (as  here)  to  be  the 
dog,  not  Galatea.  The  sex  of  the  Cyclops's  sheep-dog 
makes  the  meaning  obscure. 


IDYL   VI  37 

shut  my  door  till  she  promises  that  herself  will 
make  a  glorious  bridal -bed  on  this  island  for 
me.  For  in  truth,  I  am  not  so  hideous  as  they 
say  !  But  lately  I  was  looking  into  the  sea, 
when  all  was  calm  ;  beautiful  seemed  my  beard, 
beautiful  my  one  eye — as  I  count  beauty — and 
the  sea  reflected  the  gleam  of  my  teeth  whiter 
than  the  Parian  stone.  Then,  all  to  shun  the 
evil  eye,  did  I  spit  thrice  in  my  breast ;  for  this 
spell  was  taught  me  by  the  crone,  Cottytaris, 
that  piped  of  yore  to  the  reapers  in  Hippocoon's 
field. 

Then  Damoetas  kissed  Daphnis,  as  he  ended 
his  song,  and  he  gave  Daphnis  a  pipe,  and 
Daphnis  gave  him  a  beautiful  flute.  Damoetas 
fluted,  and  Daphnis  piped,  the  herdsman, — and 
anon  the  calves  were  dancing  in  the  soft  green 
grass.  Neither  won  the  victory,  but  both  were 
invincible. 


IDYL   VII 

The  poet  making  his  way  through  the  noonday  heat, 
with,  two  friends,  to  a  harvest  feast,  meets  the  goat- 
herd, Lycidas.  To  humour  the  poet,  Lycidas  sings 
a  love  song  of  his  own,  and  the  other  replies  with 
verses  about  the  passion  of  Aratus,  the  famous  writer 
of  didactic  verse.  After  a  courteous  parting  from 
Lycidas,  the  poet  and  his  two  friends  repair  to  the 
orchard,  where  Demeter  is  being  gratified  with  the 
first-fruits  of  harvest  and  vintaging. 
In  this  idyl,  Theocritus,  speaking  of  himself  by  the  name 
of  Simichidas,  alludes  to  his  teachers  in  poetry, 
and,  perhaps,  to  some  of  the  literary  quarrels  of  the 
time. 

The  scene  is  in  the  isle  of  Cos.  G.  Hermann  fancied 
that  t/ie  scene  was  in  Lucania,  and  Mr.  W.  R. 
Paton  thinks  he  can  identify  the  places  named  by 
the  aid  of  inscriptions  (Classical  Review,  ii.  8, 
265).  See  also  Rayet,  M6moire  sur  Tile  de  Cos, 
p.  1 8,  Paris,  1876. 

The  Harvest  Feast. 

IT  fell  upon  a  time  when  Eucritus  and  I  were 
walking  from  the  city  to  the  Hales  water,  and 
Amyntas  was  the  third  in  our  company.  The 
harvest -feast  of  Deo  was  then  being  held  by 
Phrasidemus  and  Antigenes,  two  sons  of  Lyco- 
peus  (if  aught  there  be  of  noble  and  old  descent), 


IDYL   VII  39 

whose  lineage  dates  from  Clytia,  and  Chalcon 
himself — Chalcon,  beneath  whose  foot  the  foun- 
tain sprang,  the  well  of  Burind.  He  set  his 
knee  stoutly  against  the  rock,  and  straightway 
by  the  spring  poplars  and  elm  trees  showed 
a  shadowy  glade,  arched  overhead  they  grew, 
and  pleached  with  leaves  of  green.  We  had 
not  yet  reached  the  mid-point  of  the  way,  nor 
was  the  tomb  of  Brasilas  yet  risen  upon  our 
sight,  when, — thanks  be  to  the  Muses — we  met 
a  certain  wayfarer,  the  best  of  men,  a  Cydonian. 
Lycidas  was  his  name,  a  goatherd  was  he,  nor 
could  any  that  saw  him  have  taken  him  for 
other  than  he  was,  for  all  about  him  bespoke 
the  goatherd.  Stripped  from  the  roughest  of 
he -goats  was  the  tawny  skin  he  wore  on  his 
shoulders,  the  smell  of  rennet  clinging  to  it 
still,  and  about  his  breast  an  old  cloak  was 
buckled  with  a  plaited  belt,  and  in  his  right 
hand  he  carried  a  crooked  staff  of  wild  olive  : 
and  quietly  he  accosted  me,  with  a  smile,  a 
twinkling  eye,  and  a  laugh  still  on  his  lips  : — 

'  Simichidas,  whither,  pray,  through  the  noon 
dost  thou  trail  thy  feet,  when  even  the  very 
lizard  on  the  rough  stone  wall  is  sleeping,  and 
the  crested  larks  no  longer  fare  afield  ?  Art 
thou  hastening  to  a  feast,  a  bidden  guest,  or 
art  thou  for  treading  a  townsman's  wine-press  ? 
For  such  is  thy  speed  that  every  stone  upon 
the  way  spins  singing  from  thy  boots  ! ' 

'  Dear  Lycidas,'  I  answered  him,  '  they  all 
say  that  thou  among  herdsmen,  yea,  and  reapers 
art  far  the  chiefest  flute-player.  In  sooth  this 


40  THEOCRITUS 

greatly  rejoices  our  hearts,  and  yet,  to  my  con- 
ceit, meseems  I  can  vie  with  thee.  But  as  to 
this  journey,  we  are  going  to  the  harvest-feast, 
for,  look  you  some  friends  of  ours  are  paying 
a  festival  to  fair-robed  Demeter,  out  of  the  first- 
fruits  of  their  increase,  for  verily  in  rich  measure 
has  the  goddess  filled  their  threshing-floor  with 
barley  grain.  But  come,  for  the  way  and  the 
day  are  thine  alike  and  mine,  come,  let  us  vie 
in  pastoral  song,  perchance  each  will  make  the 
other  delight.  For  I,  too,  am  a  clear-voiced 
mouth  of  the  Muses,  and  they  all  call  me  the 
best  of  minstrels,  but  I  am  not  so  credulous  ; 
no,  by  Earth,  for  to  my  mind  I  cannot  as  yet 
conquer  in  song  that  great  Sicelidas  —  the 
Samian — nay,  nor  yet  Philetas.  'Tis  a  match 
of  frog  against  cicala  !' 

So  I  spoke,  to  win  my  end,  and  the  goatherd 
with  his  sweet  laugh,  said,  '  I  give  thee  this 
staff,  because  thou  art  a  sapling  of  Zeus,  and  in 
thee  is  no  guile.  For  as  I  hate  your  builders 
that  try  to  raise  a  house  as  high  as  the  mountain 
summit  of  Oromedon,1  so  I  hate  all  birds  of 
the  Muses  that  vainly  toil  with  their  cackling 
notes  against  the  Minstrel  of  Chios  !  But  come, 
Simichidas,  without  more  ado  let  us  begin  the 
pastoral  song.  And  I — nay,  see  friend — if  it 
please  thee  at  all,  this  ditty  that  I  lately 
fashioned  on  the  mountain  side  !' 

1  Or,  56/u.ov  'ttpo/jifSovTos.  Hermann  renders  this 
domum  Oromedonteam  '  a  gigantic  house. '  Oromedon 
or  Eurymedon  was  the  king  of  the  Gigantes,  mentioned 
in  Odyssey  vii.  58. 


IDYL   VII  41 

The  Song  of  Lycidas. 

Fair  voyaging  befall  Ageanax  to  Mytilene, 
both  when  the  Kids  are  westering,  and  the 
south  wind  the  wet  waves  chases,  and  when 
Orion  holds  his  feet  above  the  Ocean  !  Fair 
voyaging  betide  him,  if  he  saves  Lycidas  from 
the  fire  of  Aphrodite,  for  hot  is  the  love  that 
consumes  me. 

The  halcyons  will  lull  the  waves,  and  lull  the 
deep,  and  the  south  wind,  and  the  east,  that 
stirs  the  sea-weeds  on  the  farthest  shores,1  the 
halcyons  that  are  dearest  to  the  green -haired 
mermaids,  of  all  the  birds  that  take  their  prey 
from  the  salt  sea.  Let  all  things  smile  on 
Ageanax  to  Mytilene  sailing,  and  may  he  come 
to  a  friendly  haven.  And  I,  on  that  day,  will 
go  crowned  with  anise,  or  with  a  rosy  wreath, 
or  a  garland  of  white  violets,  and  the  fine  wine 
of  Ptelea  I  will  dip  from  the  bowl  as  I  lie  by 
the  fire,  while  one  shall  roast  beans  for  me,  in 
the  embers.  And  elbow-deep  shall  the  flowery 
bed  be  thickly  strewn,  with  fragrant  leaves  and 
with  asphodel,  and  with  curled  parsley  ;  and 
softly  will  I  drink,  toasting  Ageanax  with  lips 
clinging  fast  to  the  cup,  and  draining  it  even  to 
the  lees. 

Two  shepherds  shall  be  my  flute-players,  one 
from  Acharnae,  one  from  Lycope,  and  hard  by 

1  ^cr^aTd.  This  is  taken  by  some  to  mean  algam 
itifimam,  '  the  bottom  weeds  of  the  deepest  seas, '  by 
others,  the  sea-weed  highest  on  the  shore,  at  high  water- 
mark. 


42  THEOCRITUS 

Tityrus  shall  sing,  how  the  herdsman  Daphnis 
once  loved  a  strange  maiden,  and  how  on 
the  hill  he  wandered,  and  how  the  oak  trees 
sang  his  dirge  — the  oaks  that  grow  by  the 
banks  of  the  river  Himeras — while  he  was 
wasting  like  any  snow  under  high  Haemus, 
or  Athos,  or  Rhodope,  or  Caucasus  at  the 
world's  end. 

And  he  shall  sing  how,  once  upon  a  time, 
the  great  chest  prisoned  the  living  goatherd,  by 
his  lord's  infatuate  and  evil  will,  and  how  the 
blunt  -  faced  bees,  as  they  came  up  from  the 
meadow  to  the  fragrant  cedar  chest,  fed  him 
with  food  of  tender  flowers,  because  the  Muse 
still  dropped  sweet  nectar  on  his  lips.1 

O  blessed  Comatas,  surely  these  joyful 
things  befell  thee,  and  thou  wast  enclosed 
within  the  chest,  and  feeding  on  the  honey- 
comb through  the  springtime  didst  thou  serve 
out  thy  bondage.  Ah,  would  that  in  my  days 
thou  hadst  been  numbered  with  the  living,  how 
gladly  on  the  hills  would  I  have  herded  thy 
pretty  she -goats,  and  listened  to  thy  voice, 
whilst  thou,  under  oaks  or  pine  trees  lying, 
didst  sweetly  sing,  divine  Comatas  ! 

When  he  had  chanted  thus  much  he  ceased, 

1  Comatas  was  a  goatherd  who  devoutly  served  the 
Muses,  and  sacrificed  to  them  his  master's  goats.  His 
master  therefore  shut  him  up  in  a  cedar  chest,  opening 
which  at  the  year's  end  he  found  Comatas  alive,  by 
miracle,  the  bees  having  fed  him  with  honey.  Thus,  in 
a  mediaeval  legend,  the  Blessed  Virgin  took  the  place, 
for  a  year,  of  the  frail  nun  who  had  devoutly  served 
her 


IDYL   VII  43 

and  I  followed  after  him  again,  with  some  such 
words  as  these  : — 

'  Dear  Lycidas,  many  another  song  the 
Nymphs  have  taught  me  also,  as  I  followed 
my  herds  upon  the  hillside,  bright  songs  that 
Rumour,  perchance,  has  brought  even  to  the 
throne  of  Zeus.  But  of  them  all  this  is  far  the 
most  excellent,  wherewith  I  will  begin  to  do 
thee  honour  :  nay  listen  as  thou  art  dear  to  the 
Muses.' 

The  Song  of  Simichidas. 

For  Simichidas  the  Loves  have  sneezed,  for 
truly  the  wretch  loves  Myrto  as  dearly  as  goats 
love  the  spring.1  But  Aratus,  far  the  dearest 
of  my  friends,  deep,  deep  in  his  heart  he  keeps 
Desire, — and  Aratus's  love  is  young  !  Aristis 
knows  it,  an  honourable  man,  nay  of  men  the 
best,  whom  even  Phoebus  would  permit  to 
stand  and  sing  lyre  in  hand,  by  his  tripods. 
Aristis  knows  how  deeply  love  is  burning 
Aratus  to  the  bone.  Ah,  Pan,  thou  lord  of  the 
beautiful  plain  of  Homole,  bring,  I  pray  thee, 
the  darling  of  Aratus  unbidden  to  his  arms, 
whosoe'er  it  be  that  he  loves.  If  this  thou 
dost,  dear  Pan,  then  never  may  the  boys  of 
Arcady  flog  thy  sides  and  shoulders  with  sting- 
ing herbs,  when  scanty  meats  are  left  them  on 
thine  altar.  But  if  thou  shouldst  otherwise 
decree,  then  may  all  thy  skin  be  frayed  and 
torn  with  thy  nails,  yea,  and  in  nettles  mayst 

1  Sneezing  in  Sicily,  as  in  most  countries,  was  a  happy 
omen. 


44  THEOCRITUS 

thou  couch !  In  the  hills  of  the  Edonians 
mayst  thou  dwell  in  mid -winter  time,  by  the 
river  Hebrus,  close  neighbour  to  the  Polar 
star  !  But  in  summer  mayst  thou  range  with 
the  uttermost  ^Ethiopians  beneath  the  rock  of 
the  Blemyes,  whence  Nile  no  more  is  seen. 

And  you,  leave  ye  the  sweet  fountain  of 
Hyetis  and  Byblis,  and  ye  that  dwell  in  the 
steep  home  of  golden  Dione,  ye  Loves  as  rosy 
as  red  apples,  strike  me  with  your  arrows,  the 
desired,  the  beloved  ;  strike,  for  that  ill-starred 
one  pities  not  my  friend,  my  host !  And  yet 
assuredly  the  pear  is  over-ripe,  and  the  maidens 
cry  '  alas,  alas,  thy  fair  bloom  fades  away  ! ' 

Come,  no  more  let  us  mount  guard  by  these 
gates,  Aratus,  nor  wear  our  feet  away  with 
knocking  there.  Nay,  let  the  crowing  of  the 
morning  cock  give  others  over  to  the  bitter 
cold  of  dawn.  Let  Molon  alone,  my  friend, 
bear  the  torment  at  that  school  of  passion  ! 
For  us,  let  us  secure  a  quiet  life,  and  some  old 
crone  to  spit  on  us  for  luck,  and  so  keep  all 
unlovely  things  away. 

Thus  I  sang,  and  sweetly  smiling,  as  before, 
he  gave  me  the  staff,  a  pledge  of  brotherhood 
in  the  Muses.  Then  he  bent  his  way  to  the 
left,  and  took  the  road  to  Pyxa,  while  I  and 
Eucritus,  with  beautiful  Amyntas,  turned  to  the 
farm  of  Phrasidemus.  There  we  reclined  on 
deep  beds  of  fragrant  lentisk,  lowly  strown, 
and  rejoicing  we  lay  in  new  stript  leaves  of  the 
vine.  And  high  above  our  heads  waved  many 
a  poplar,  many  an  elm  tree,  while  close  at  hand 


IDYL  VII  45 

the  sacred  water  from  the  nymphs'  own  cave 
welled  forth  with  murmurs  musical.  On 
shadowy  boughs  the  burnt  cicalas  kept  their 
chattering  toil,  far  off  the  little  owl  cried  in  the 
thick  thorn  brake,  the  larks  and  finches  were 
singing,  the  ring-dove  moaned,  the  yellow  bees 
were  flitting  about  the  springs.  All  breathed 
the  scent  of  the  opulent  summer,  of  the  season 
of  fruits  ;  pears  at  our  feet  and  apples  by  our 
sides  were  rolling  plentiful,  the  tender  branches, 
with  wild  plums  laden,  were  earthward  bowed, 
and  the  four-year-old  pitch  seal  was  loosened 
from  the  mouth  of  the  wine-jars. 

Ye  nymphs  of  Castaly  that  hold  the  steep  of 
Parnassus,  say,  was  it  ever  a  bowl  like  this  that 
old  Chiron  set  before  Heracles  in  the  rocky 
cave  of  Pholus  ?  Was  it  nectar  like  this  that 
beguiled  the  shepherd  to  dance  and  foot  it 
about  his  folds,  the  shepherd  that  dwelt  by 
Anapus,  on  a  time,  the  strong  Polyphemus 
who  hurled  at  ships  with  mountains  ?  Had 
these  ever  such  a  draught  as  ye  nymphs  bade 
flow  for  us  by  the  altar  of  Demeter  of  the 
threshing-floor  ? 

Ah,  once  again  may  I  plant  the  great  fan  on 
her  corn-heap,  while  she  stands  smiling  by,  with 
sheaves  and  poppies  in  her  hands. 


IDYL   VIII 

The  scene   is    among  the   high   mountain  pastures  of 
Sicily  :— 

'  On  the  sward,  at  t)ie  cliff  top 
Lie  strewn  the  white  flocks  ; ' 

and  far  below  shines  and  murmurs  the  Sicilian  sea. 
Here  Daphnis  and  Menalcas,  two  herdsmen  of  the 
golden  age,  meet,  while  still  in  their  earliest  youth, 
and  contend  for  the  prize  of  pastoral.  Their  songs, 
in  elegiac  measure,  are  variations  on  the  themes  of 
love  and  friendship  (for  Menalcas  sings  of  Milan, 
Daphnis  of  Nais),  and  of  nature.  Daphnis  is  the 
winner;  it  is  his  earliest  victory,  and  the  prelude 
to  his  great  renown  among  nymphs  and  s/tepkerds. 
In  this  version  the  strophes  are  arranged  as  in 
Fritzsche  s  text.  Some  critics  take  the  poem  to  be  a 
patchwork  by  various  hands. 

As  beautiful  Daphnis  was  following  his  kine,  and 
Menalcas  shepherding  his  flock,  they  met,  as 
men  tell,  on  the  long  ranges  of  the  hills.  The 
beards  of  both  had  still  the  first  golden  bloom, 
both  were  in  their  earliest  youth,  both  were 
pipe-players  skilled,  both  skilled  in  song. 
Then  first  Menalcas,  looking  at  Daphnis,  thus 
bespoke  him. 

'  Daphnis,  thou  herdsman  of  the  lowing  kine, 


IDYL   VIII  47 

art  thou  minded  to  sing  a  match  with  me  ? 
Methinks  I  shall  vanquish  thee,  when  I  sing  in 
turn,  as  readily  as  I  please.' 

Then  Daphnis  answered  him  again  in  this 
wise,  'Thou  shepherd  of  the  fleecy  sheep, 
Menalcas,  the  pipe -player,  never  wilt  thou 
vanquish  me  in  song,  not  thou,  if  thou  shouldst 
sing  till  some  evil  thing  befall  thee  ! ' 

Menalcas.  Dost  thou  care  then,  to  try  this 
and  see,  dost  thou  care  to  risk  a  stake  ? 

Daphnis.  I  do  care  to  try  this  and  see,  a 
stake  I  am  ready  to  risk. 

Menalcas.  But  what  shall  we  stake,  what 
pledge  shall  we  find  equal  and  sufficient  ? 

Daphnis.  I  will  pledge  a  calf,  and  do  thou 
put  down  a  lamb,  one  that  has  grown  to  his 
mother's  height. 

Menalcas.  Nay,  never  will  I  stake  a  lamb, 
for  stern  is  my  father,  and  stern  my  mother, 
and  they  number  all  the  sheep  at  evening. 

Daphnis.  But  what,  then,  wilt  thou  lay,  and 
where  is  to  be  the  victor's  gain  ? 

Menalcas.  The  pipe,  the  fair  pipe  with  nine 
stops,  that  I  made  myself,  fitted  with  white 
wax,  and  smoothed  evenly,  above  as  below. 
This  would  I  readily  wager,  but  never  will  I 
stake  aught  that  is  my  father's. 

Daphnis.  See  then,  I  too,  in  truth,  have  a 
pipe  with  nine  stops,  fitted  with  white  wax, 
and  smoothed  evenly,  above  as  below.  But 
lately  I  put  it  together,  and  this  finger 
still  aches,  where  the  reed  split,  and  cut  it 
deeply. 


48  THEOCRITUS 

Menalcas.  But  who  is  to  judge  between  us, 
who  will  listen  to  our  singing  ? 

Daphnis.  That  goatherd  yonder,  he  will  do, 
if  we  call  him  hither,  the  man  for  whom  that 
dog,  a  black  hound  with  a  white  patch,  is  bark- 
ing among  the  kids. 

Then  the  boys  called  aloud,  and  the  goat- 
herd gave  ear,  and  came,  and  the  boys  began 
to  sing,  and  the  goatherd  was  willing  to  be 
their  umpire.  And  first  Menalcas  sang  (for  he 
drew  the  lot)  the  sweet-voiced  Menalcas,  and 
Daphnis  took  up  the  answering  strain  of  pas- 
toral song — and  'twas  thus  Menalcas  began: 

Menalcas.  Ye  glades,  ye  rivers,  issue  of  the 
Gods,  if  ever  Menalcas  the  flute-player  sang  a 
song  ye  loved,  to  please  him,  feed  his  lambs  ; 
and  if  ever  Daphnis  come  hither  with  his  calves, 
may  he  have  no  less  a  boon. 

Daphnis.  Ye  wells  and  pastures,  sweet 
growth  o'  the  world,  if  Daphnis  sings  like  the 
nightingales,  do  ye  fatten  this  herd  of  his,  and 
if  Menalcas  hither  lead  a  flock,  may  he  too  have 
pasture  ungrudging  to  his  full  desire  ! 

Menalcas.  There  doth  the  ewe  bear  twins, 
and  there  the  goats  ;  there  the  bees  fill  the 
hives,  and  there  oaks  grow  loftier  than  common, 
wheresoever  beautiful  Milon's  feet  walk  wander- 
ing ;  ah,  if  he  depart,  then  withered  and  lean 
is  the  shepherd,  and  lean  the  pastures  ! 

Daphnis.  Everywhere  is  spring,  and  pastures 
everywhere,  and  everywhere  the  cows'  udders 
are  swollen  with  milk,  and  the  younglings  are 
fostered,  wheresoever  fair  Nais  roams  ;  ah,  if 


IDYL   VIII  49 

she  depart,  then  parched  are  the  kine,  and  he 
that  feeds  them  ! 

Menalcas.  O  bearded  goat,  thou  mate  of 
the  white  herd,  and  O  ye  blunt-faced  kids, 
where  are  the  manifold  deeps  of  the  forest, 
thither  get  ye  to  the  water,  for  thereby  is 
Milon  ;  go,  thou  hornless  goat,  and  say  to  him, 
'  Milon,  Proteus  was  a  herdsman,  and  that  of 
seals,  though  he  was  a  god.' 

Daphnis.          ..... 

Menalcas.  Not  mine  be  the  land  of  Pelops, 
not  mine  to  own  talents  of  gold,  nay,  nor  mine 
to  outrun  the  speed  of  the  winds  !  Nay,  but 
beneath  this  rock  will  I  sing,  with  thee  in  mine 
arms,  and  watch  our  flocks  feeding  together, 
and,  before  us,  the  Sicilian  sea. 

Daphnis.  ..... 

Menalcas.         ..... 

Daphnis.  Tempest  is  the  dread  pest  of  the 
trees,  drought  of  the  waters,  snares  of  the  birds, 
and  the  hunter's  net  of  the  wild  beasts,  but 
ruinous  to  man  is  the  love  of  a  delicate  maiden. 
O  father,  O  Zeus,  I  have  not  been  the  only 
lover,  thou  too  hast  longed  for  a  mortal  woman. 

Thus  the  boys  sang  in  verses  amoebaean, 
and  thus  Menalcas  began  the  crowning  lay : 

Menalcas.  Wolf,  spare  the  kids,  spare  the 
mothers  of  my  herd,  and  harm  not  me,  so 
young  as  I  am  to  tend  so  great  a  flock.  Ah, 
Lampurus,  my  dog,  dost  thou  then  sleep  so 
soundly  ?  a  dog  should  not  sleep  so  sound,  that 
helps  a  boyish  shepherd.  Ewes  of  mine,  spare 
ye  not  to  take  your  fill  of  the  tender  herb,  ye 
E 


50  THEOCRITUS 

shall  not  weary,  'ere  all  this  grass  grows  again. 
Hist,  feed  on,  feed  on,  fill,  all  of  you,  your 
udders,  that  there  may  be  milk  for  the  lambs, 
and  somewhat  for  me  to  store  away  in  the 
cheese-crates. 

Then  Daphnis  followed  again,  and  sweetly 
preluded  to  his  singing  : 

Daphnis.  Me,  even  me,  from  the  cave,  the 
girl  with  meeting  eyebrows  spied  yesterday  as 
I  was  driving  past  my  calves,  and  she  cried, 
'  How  fair,  how  fair  he  is  ! '  But  I  answered 
her  never  the  word  of  railing,  but  cast  down 
my  eyes,  and  plodded  on  my  way. 

Sweet  is  the  voice  of  the  heifer,  sweet  her 
breath,1  sweet  to  lie  beneath  the  sky  in  summer, 
by  running  water. 

Acorns  are  the  pride  of  the  oak,  apples  of 
the  apple  tree,  the  calf  of  the  heifer,  and  the 
neatherd  glories  in  his  kine. 

So  sang  the  lads,  and  the  goatherd  thus  be- 
spoke them,  '  Sweet  is  thy  mouth,  O  Daphnis, 
and  delectable  thy  song  !  Better  is  it  to  listen 
to  thy  singing,  than  to  taste  the  honeycomb. 
Take  thou  the  pipe,  for  thou  hast  conquered  in 
the  singing  match.  Ah,  if  thou  wilt  but  teach 
some  lay,  even  to  me,  as  I  tend  the  goats  beside 
thee,  this  blunt-horned  she-goat  will  I  give  thee, 
for  the  price  of  thy  teaching,  this  she-goat  that 
ever  fills  the  milking  pail  above  the  brim.' 

Then  was  the  boy  as  glad, — and  leaped 
high,  and  clapped  his  hands  over  his  victory, 
— as  a  young  fawn  leaps  about  his  mother. 

1  A  superfluous  and  apocryphal  line  is  here  omitted. 


IDYL   VIII  51 

But  the  heart  of  the  other  was  wasted  with 
grief,  and  desolate,  even  as  a  maiden  sorrows 
that  is  newly  wed. 

From  this  time  Daphnis  became  the  foremost 
among  the  shepherds,  and  while  yet  in  his 
earliest  youth,  he  wedded  the  nymph  Nais. 


IDYL    IX 

Daphnis  and  Menalcas,  at  the  bidding  of  the  poet,  sing 
the  joys  of  the  neatherd's  and  of  the  shepherd' s  life. 
Both  receive  the  thanks  of  the  poet,  and  rustic  prises 
—  a  staff,  and  a  horn,  made  of  a  spiral  shell. 
Doubts  have  been  expressed  as  to  the  authenticity 
of  the  prelude  and  concluding  verses.  The  latter 
breathe  all  Theocritus'  s  enthusiastic  love  of  song. 

SING,  Daphnis,  a  pastoral  lay,  do  thou  first 
begin  the  song,  the  song  begin,  O  Daphnis  ; 
but  let  Menalcas  join  in  the  strain,  when  ye 
have  mated  the  heifers  and  their  calves,  the 
barren  kine  and  the  bulls.  Let  them  all  pas- 
ture together,  let  them  wander  in  the  coppice, 
but  never  leave  the  herd.  Chant  thou  for 
me,  first,  and  on  the  other  side  let  Menalcas 
reply. 

Daphnis.  Ah,  sweetly  lows  the  calf,  and 
sweetly  the  heifer,  sweetly  sounds  the  neatherd 
with  his  pipe,  and  sweetly  also  I  !  My  bed  of 
leaves  is  strown  by  the  cool  water,  and  thereon 
are  heaped  fair  skins  from  the  white  calves  that 
were  all  browsing  upon  the  arbutus,  on  a  time, 
when  the  south-west  wind  dashed  me  them 
from  the  height. 


IDYL  IX  53 

And  thus  I  heed  no  more  the  scorching 
summer,  than  a  lover  cares  to  heed  the  words 
of  father  or  of  mother. 

So  Daphnis  sang  to  me,  and  thus,  in  turn, 
did  Menalcas  sing. 

Menalcas.  Aetna,  mother  mine,  I  too  dwell 
in  a  beautiful  cavern  in  the  chamber  of  the  rock, 
and,  lo,  all  the  wealth  have  I  that  we  behold 
in  dreams ;  ewes  in  plenty  and  she-goats 
abundant,  their  fleeces  are  strown  beneath  my 
head  and  feet.  In  the  fire  of  oak-faggots 
puddings  are  hissing-hot,  and  dry  beech-nuts 
roast  therein,  in  the  wintry  weather,  and,  truly, 
for  the  winter  season  I  care  not  even  so  much 
as  a  toothless  man  does  for  walnuts,  when  rich 
pottage  is  beside  him. 

Then  I  clapped  my  hands  in  their  honour, 
and  instantly  gave  each  a  gift,  to  Daphnis  a 
staff  that  grew  in  my  father's  close,  self-shapen, 
yet  so  straight,  that  perchance  even  a  crafts- 
man could  have  found  no  fault  in  it.  To  the 
other  I  gave  a  goodly  spiral  shell,  the  meat 
that  filled  it  once  I  had  eaten  after  stalking  the 
fish  on  the  Icarian  rocks  (I  cut  it  into  five 
shares  for  five  of  us), — and  Menalcas  blew  a 
blast  on  the  shell. 

Ye  pastoral  Muses,  farewell !  Bring  ye  into 
the  light  the  song  that  I  sang  there  to  these 
shepherds  on  that  day  !  Never  let  the  pimple 
grow  on  my  tongue-tip.1 

1  An  allusion  to  the  common  superstition  (cf.  Idyl  xii. 
24)  that  perjurers  and  liars  were  punished  by  pimples 
and  blotches.  The  old  Irish  held  that  blotches  showed 


54  THEOCRITUS 

Cicala  to  cicala  is  dear,  and  ant  to  ant,  and 
hawks  to  hawks,  but  to  me  the  Muse  and  song. 
Of  song  may  all  my  dwelling  be  full,  for  sleep 
is  not  more  sweet,  nor  sudden  spring,  nor 
flowers  are  more  delicious  to  the  bees — so  dear 
to  me  are  the  Muses.1  Whom  they  look  on 
in  happy  hour,  Circe  hath  never  harmed  with 
her  enchanted  potion. 

themselves  on  the  faces  of  Brehons  who  gave  unjust 
judgments. 

1  Spring  in  the  south,  like  Night  in  the  tropics,  comes 
'  at  one  stride '  ;  but  Wordsworth  finds  the  rendering 
distasteful,  '  neque  sic  redditum  valde  placet. ' 


IDYL    X 

THE   REAPERS 

This  is  an  idyl  of  the  same  genre  as  Idyl  IV.  The 
sturdy  reaper,  Milan,  as  he  levels  the  swathes  of 
corn,  derides  his  languid  and  love-worn  companion, 
Battus.  The  latter  defends  his  gipsy  love  in  verses 
•which  have  been  the  keynote  of  much  later  poetry, 
and  -which  echo  in  the  fourth  book  of  Lucretius,  and 
in  the  Misanthrope  of  Molitre.  Milon  replies  with 
the  song  of  Lityerses — a  string,  apparently,  of  popular- 
rural  couplets,  such  as  Theocritus  may  have  heard 
chanted  in  the  fields. 

Milon.  Thou  toilsome  clod ;  what  ails  thee 
now,  thou  wretched  fellow  ?  Canst  thou 
neither  cut  thy  swathe  straight,  as  thou  wert 
wont  to  do,  nor  keep  time  with  thy  neighbour 
in  thy  reaping,  but  thou  must  fall  out,  like  an 
ewe  that  is  foot -pricked  with  a  thorn  and 
straggles  from  the  herd  ?  What  manner  of 
man  wilt  thou  prove  after  mid-noon,  and  at 
evening,  thou  that  dost  not  prosper  with  thy 
swathe  when  thou  art  fresh  begun  ? 

Battus.  Milon,  thou  that  canst  toil  till  late, 
thou  chip  of  the  stubborn  stone,  has  it  never  be- 
fallen thee  to  loner  for  one  that  was  not  with  thee  ? 


56  THEOCRITUS 

Milan.  Never  !  What  has  a  labouring  man 
to  do  with  hankering  after  what  he  has  not 
got? 

Battus.  Then  it  never  befell  thee  to  lie 
awake  for  love  ? 

Milan.  Forbid  it  ;  'tis  an  ill  thing  to  let  the 
dog  once  taste  of  pudding. 

Battus.  But  I,  Milon,  am  in  love  for  almost 
eleven  days ! 

Milon.  'Tis  easily  seen  that  thou  drawest 
from  a  wine-cask,  while  even  vinegar  is  scarce 
with  me. 

Battus.  And  for  Love's  sake,  the  fields  before 
my  doors  are  untilled  since  seed-time. 

Milon.   But  which  of  the  girls  afflicts  thee  so? 

Battus.  The  daughter  of  Polybotas,  she  that 
of  late  was  wont  to  pipe  to  the  reapers  on 
Hippocoon's  farm. 

Milan.  God  has  found  out  the  guilty  !  Thou 
hast  what  thou'st  long  been  seeking,  that  grass- 
hopper of  a  girl  will  lie  by  thee  the  night  long  ! 

Battus.  Thou  art  beginning  thy  mocks  of 
me,  but  Plutus  is  not  the  only  blind  god ;  he 
too  is  blind,  the  heedless  Love  !  Beware  of 
talking  big. 

Milon.  Talk  big  I  do  not !  Only  see  that 
thou  dost  level  the  corn,  and  strike  up  some 
love-ditty  in  the  wench's  praise.  More  plea- 
santly thus  wilt  thou  labour,  and,  indeed,  of 
old  thou  wert  a  melodist. 

Battus.  Ye  Muses  Pierian,  sing  ye  with  me 
the  slender  maiden,  for  whatsoever  ye  do  but 
touch,  ye  goddesses,  ye  make  wholly  fair. 


IDYL  X  57 

They  all  call  thee  a  gipsy,  gracious  Bombyca, 
and  lean,  and  sunburnt,  'tis  only  I  that  call 
thee  honey-pale. 

Yea,  and  the  violet  is  swart,  and  swart  the 
lettered  hyacinth,  but  yet  these  flowers  are 
chosen  the  first  in  garlands. 

The  goat  runs  after  cytisus,  the  wolf  pursues 
the  goat,  the  crane  follows  the  plough,  but  I 
am  wild  for  love  of  thee. 

Would  it  were  mine,  all  the  wealth  whereof 
once  Croesus  was  lord,  as  men  tell !  Then 
images  of  us  twain,  all  in  gold,  should  be 
dedicated  to  Aphrodite,  thou  with  thy  flute,  and 
a  rose,  yea,  or  an  apple,  and  I  in  fair  attire, 
and  new  shoon  of  Amyclae  on  both  my  feet. 

Ah  gracious  Bombyca,  thy  feet  are  fashioned 
like  carven  ivory,  thy  voice  is  drowsy  sweet, 
and  thy  ways,  I  cannot  tell  of  them  ! * 

Milon.  Verily  our  clown  was  a  maker  of 
lovely  songs,  and  we  knew  it  not !  How  well 
he  meted  out  and  shaped  his  harmony ;  woe  is 
me  for  the  beard  that  I  have  grown,  all  in 
vain  !  Come,  mark  thou  too  these  lines  of 
godlike  Lityerses  ! 

THE  LITYERSES  SONG. 

Demeter,  rich  in  fruit,  and  rich  in  grain, 
may  this  corn  be  easy  to  win,  and  fruitful 
exceedingly  ! 

Bind,  ye  bandsters,  the  sheaves,  lest  the  ivay- 

1  '  Quant  &  ta  mani£re,  je  ne  puis  la  rendre. ' — 
SAINTE-BEUVE. 


58  THEOCRITUS 

farer  should  cry,  '  Men  of  straw  were  the 
workers  Jiere,  ay,  and  their  hire  was  wasted  ' ' 

See  that  the  cut  stubble  faces  the  North  wind, 
or  the  West,  'tis  thus  tJie  grain  waxes  richest. 

They  that  thresh  corn  should  shun  the  noon- 
day sleep ;  at  noon  the  chaff  parts  easiest  from 
the  straw. 

As  for  the  reapers,  let  them  begin  wJien  the 
crested  lark  is  waking,  and  cease  when  he  sleeps, 
but  take  holiday  in  the  heat. 

Lads,  the  frog  has  a  jolly  life,  he  is  not 
cumbered  about  a  butler  to  his  drink,  for  he  has 
liquor  by  him  unstinted ! 

Boil  the  lentils  better,  thou  miserly  steward  ; 
take  heed  lest  thou  chop  thy  fingers,  when  thorfrt 
splitting  cumin-seed. 

'Tis  thus  that  men  should  sing  who  labour 
i'  the  sun,  but  thy  starveling  love,  thou  clod, 
'twere  fit  to  tell  to  thy  mother  when  she  stirs  in 
bed  at  dawning. 


IDYL   XI 

THE    CYCLOPS    IN    LOVE 

Nicias,  the  physician  and  poet,  being  in  love,  Theocritus 
reminds  him  that  in  song  lies  the  only  remedy.  It 
was  by  song,  he  says,  that  the  Cyclops,  Polypfiemtts, 
got  him  some  ease,  when  he  was  in  love  with  Galatea, 
the  sea-nymph. 

The  idyl  displays,  in  the  most  graceful  manner,  the  Alex- 
andrian taste  for  turning  Greek  mythology  into  love 
stories.  No  creature  could  be  more  remote  from  love 
than  the  original  Polyphemus,  the  cannibal  giant 
of  the  Odyssey. 

THERE  is  none  other  medicine,  Nicias,  against 
Love,  neither  unguent,  methinks,  nor  salve  to 
sprinkle, — none,  save  the  Muses  of  Pieria ! 
Now  a  delicate  thing  is  their  minstrelsy  in  man's 
life,  and  a  sweet,  but  hard  to  procure.  Methinks 
thou  know'st  this  well,  who  art  thyself  a  leech, 
and  beyond  all  men  art  plainly  dear  to  the 
Muses  nine. 

'Twas  surely  thus  the  Cyclops  fleeted  his  life 
most  easily,  he  that  dwelt  among  us, — Poly- 
phemus of  old  time, — when  the  beard  was  yet 
young  on  his  cheek  and  chin  ;  and  he  loved 
Galatea.  He  loved,  not  with  apples,  not  roses, 


60  THEOCRITUS 

nor  locks  of  hair,  but  with  fatal  frenzy,  and  all 
things  else  he  held  but  trifles  by  the  way. 
Many  a  time  from  the  green  pastures  would  his 
ewes  stray  back,  self-shepherded,  to  the  fold. 
But  he  was  singing  of  Galatea,  and  pining  in 
his  place  he  sat  by  the  sea-weed  of  the  beach, 
from  the  dawn  of  day,  with  the  direst  hurt 
beneath  his  breast  of  mighty  Cypris's  sending, 
— the  wound  of  her  arrow  in  his  heart  ! 

Yet  this  remedy  he  found,  and  sitting  on  the 
crest  of  the  tall  cliff,  and  looking  to  the  deep, 
'twas  thus  he  would  sing  : — 

Song  of  the  Cyclops. 

0  milk-white    Galatea,   why  cast    off  him 
that  loves  thee  ?     More  white  than  is  pressed 
milk    to    look    upon,   more    delicate    than   the 
lamb  art  thou,  than  the  young  calf  wantoner, 
more  sleek  than  the  unripened  grape !     Here 
dost  thou    resort,   even   so,  when   sweet   sleep 
possesses  me,  and  home  straightway  dost  thou 
depart  when  sweet   sleep  lets  me  go,  fleeing 
me  like  an  ewe  that  has  seen  the  grey  wolf. 

1  fell  in   love  with   thee,  maiden,  I,  on   the 
day  when  first  thou  earnest,  with  my  mother,  and 
didst  wish  to  pluck  the  hyacinths  from  the  hill, 
and  I  was  thy  guide  on  the  way.     But  to  leave 
loving  thee,  when  once  I  had  seen  thee,  neither 
afterward,  nor  now  at  all,  have  I  the  strength, 
even  from  that  hour.     But  to  thee  all  this  is  as 
nothing,  by  Zeus,  nay,  nothing  at  all ! 

I   know,   thou  gracious  maiden,    why   it   is 


IDYL  XI  61 

that  thou  dost  shun  me.  It  is  all  for  the 
shaggy  brow  that  spans  all  my  forehead,  from 
this  to  the  other  ear,  one  long  unbroken  eye- 
brow. And  but  one  eye  is  on  my  forehead, 
and  broad  is  the  nose  that  overhangs  my  lip. 
Yet  I  (even  such  as  thou  seest  me)  feed  a 
thousand  cattle,  and  from  these  I  draw  and 
drink  the  best  milk  in  the  world.  And  cheese 
I  never  lack,  in  summer  time  or  autumn,  nay, 
nor  in  the  dead  of  winter,  but  my  baskets  are 
always  overladen. 

Also  I  am  skilled  in  piping,  as  none  other 
of  the  Cyclopes  here,  and  of  thee,  my  love,  my 
sweet -apple,  and  of  myself  too  I  sing,  many 
a  time,  deep  in  the  night.  And  for  thee  I  tend 
eleven  fawns,  all  crescent  -  browed,1  and  four 
young  whelps  of  the  bear. 

Nay,  come  thou  to  me,  and  thou  shalt  lack 
nothing  that  now  thou  hast.  Leave  the  grey 
sea  to  roll  against  the  land  ;  more  sweetly,  in 
this  cavern,  shalt  thou  fleet  the  night  with  me  ! 
Thereby  the  laurels  grow,  and  there  the  slender 
cypresses,  there  is  the  ivy  dun,  and  the  sweet 
clustered  grapes  ;  there  is  chill  water,  that  for 
me  deep -wooded  ALtna.  sends  down  from  the 
white  snow,  a  draught  divine !  Ah  who,  in 
place  of  these,  would  choose  the  sea  to  dwell 
in,  or  the  waves  of  the  sea  ? 

But  if  thou  dost  refuse  because  my  body 
seems  shaggy  and  rough,  well,  I  have  faggots 
of  oakwood,  and  beneath  the  ashes  is  fire  un- 
wearied, and  I  would  endure  to  let  thee  burn 
1  Reading  ntjvoQbpwi. 


62  THEOCRITUS 

my  very  soul,  and  this  my  one  eye,  the  dearest 
thing  that  is  mine. 

Ah  me,  that  my  mother  bore  me  not  a  finny 
thing,  so  would  I  have  gone  down  to  thee,  and 
kissed  thy  hand,  if  thy  lips  thou  would  not 
suffer  me  to  kiss  !  And  I  would  have  brought 
thee  either  white  lilies,  or  the  soft  poppy  with 
its  scarlet  petals.  Nay,  these  are  summer's 
flowers,  and  those  are  flowers  of  winter,  so  I 
could  not  have  brought  thee  them  all  at  one 
time. 

Now,  verily,  maiden,  now  and  here  will  I 
learn  to  swim,  if  perchance  some  stranger  come 
hither,  sailing  with  his  ship,  that  I  may  see 
why  it  is  so  dear  to  thee,  to  have  thy  dwelling 
in  the  deep. 

Come  forth,  Galatea,  and  forget  as  thou 
comest,  even  as  I  that  sit  here  have  forgotten, 
the  homeward  way  !  Nay,  choose  with  me  to 
go  shepherding,  with  me  to  milk  the  flocks,  and 
to  pour  the  sharp  rennet  in,  and  to  fix  the 
cheeses. 

There  is  none  that  wrongs  me  but  that 
mother  of  mine,  and  her  do  I  blame.  Never, 
nay,  never  once  has  she  spoken  a  kind  word 
for  me  to  thee,  and  that  though  day  by  day  she 
beholds  me  wasting.  I  will  tell  her  that  my 
head,  and  both  my  feet  are  throbbing,  that 
she  may  somewhat  suffer,  since  I  too  am 
suffering. 

O  Cyclops,  Cyclops,  whither  are  thy  wits 
wandering  ?  Ah  that  thou  wouldst  go,  and 
weave  thy  wicker  -  work,  and  gather  broken 


IDYL  XI  63 

boughs  to  carry  to  thy  lambs  :  in  faith,  if  thou 
didst  this,  far  wiser  vvouldst  thou  be  ! 

Milk  the  ewe  that  thou  hast,  why  pursue  the 
thing  that  shuns  thee  ?  Thou  wilt  find,  per- 
chance, another,  and  a  fairer  Galatea.  Many 
be  the  girls  that  bid  me  play  with  them  through 
the  night,  and  softly  they  all  laugh,  if  perchance 
I  answer  them.  On  land  it  is  plain  that  I  too 
seem  to  be  somebody  ! 

Lo,  thus  Polyphemus  still  shepherded  his 
love  with  song,  and  lived  lighter  than  if  he  had 
given  gold  for  ease. 


IDYL    XII 

THE   PASSIONATE   FRIEND 

This  is  rather  a  lyric  than  an  idyl,  being  an  expression 
of  that  singular  passion  which  existed  between  men 
in  historical  Greece.  The  next  idyl,  like  the  Myr- 
midons of  Aeschylus,  attributes  the  same  manners 
to  mythical  and  heroic  Greece.  It  should  be  un- 
necessary to  say,  that  the  affection  between  Homeric 
warriors,  like  Achilles  and  Patroclus,  was  only 
that  of  companions  in  arms  and  was  quite  unlike 
the  later  sentiment. 

HAST  thou  come,  dear  youth,  with  the  third 
night  and  the  dawning ;  hast  thou  come  ?  but 
men  in  longing  grow  old  in  a  day  !  As  spring 
than  the  winter  is  sweeter,  as  the  apple  than 
the  sloe,  as  the  ewe  is  deeper  of  fleece  than  the 
lamb  she  bore  ;  as  a  maiden  surpasses  a  thrice- 
wedded  wife,  as  the  fawn  is  nimbler  than  the 
calf;  nay,  by  as  much  as  sweetest  of  all  fowls 
sings  the  clear -voiced  nightingale,  so  much 
has  thy  coming  gladdened  me  !  To  thee 
have  I  hastened  as  the  traveller  hastens 
under  the  burning  sun  to  the  shadow  of  the 
ilex  tree. 


IDYL  XII  65 

Ah,  would  that  equally  the  Loves  may  breathe 
upon  us  twain,  may  we  become  a  song  in  the 
ears  of  all  men  unborn. 

'  Lo,  a  pair  were  these  two  friends  among 
the  folk  of  former  time,'  the  one  'the  Knight' 
(so  the  Amyclaeans  call  him),  the  other,  again, 
'  the  Page,'  so  styled  in  speech  of  Thessaly. 

'  An  equal  yoke  of  friendship  they  bore  :  ah, 
surely  then  there  were  golden  men  of  old,  when 
friends  gave  love  for  love  ! ' 

And  would,  O  father  Cronides,  and  would, 
ye  ageless  immortals,  that  this  might  be ;  and 
that  when  two  hundred  generations  have  sped, 
one  might  bring  these  tidings  to  me  by  Acheron, 
the  irremeable  stream. 

'  The  loving-kindness  that  was  between  thee 
and  thy  gracious  friend,  is  even  now  in  all 
men's  mouths,  and  chiefly  on  the  lips  of  the 
young.' 

Nay,  verily,  the  gods  of  heaven  will  be 
masters  of  these  things,  to  rule  them  as  they 
will,  but  when  I  praise  thy  graciousness  no 
blotch  that  punishes  the  perjurer  shall  spring 
upon  the  tip  of  my  nose  !  Nay,  if  ever  thou 
hast  somewhat  pained  me,  forthwith  thou  healest 
the  hurt,  giving  a  double  delight,  and  I  depart 
with  my  cup  full  and  running  over  ! 

Nisaean  men  of  Megara,  ye  champions  of 
the  oars,  happily  may  ye  dwell,  for  that  ye 
honoured  above  all  men  the  Athenian  stranger, 
even  Diocles,  the  true  lover.  Always  about  his 
tomb  the  children  gather  in  their  companies,  at 
the  coming  in  of  the  spring,  and  contend  for 
F 


66  THEOCRITUS 

the  prize  of  kissing.  And  whoso  most  sweetly 
touches  lip  to  lip,  laden  with  garlands  he  re- 
turneth  to  his  mother.  Happy  is  he  that  judges 
those  kisses  of  the  children  ;  surely  he  prays 
most  earnestly  to  bright-faced  Ganymedes,  that 
his  lips  may  be  as  the  Lydian  touchstone, 
wherewith  the  money  -  changers  try  gold  lest 
perchance  base  metal  pass  for  true. 


IDYL    XIII 

HYLAS    AND    HERACLES 

As  in  the  eleventh  Idyl,  Nicias  is  again  addressed,  by 
way  of  introduction  to  the  story  of  Hylas.  This 
beautiful  lad,  a  favourite  companion  of  Heracles, 
took  part  in  the  Quest  of  the  Fleece  of  Gold.  As  he 
went  to  draw  water  from  a  fountain,  the  water- 
nymphs  dragged  him  down  to  their  home,  and 
Heracles,  after  a  long  and  vain  search,  was  com- 
pelled to  follow  the  heroes  of  the  Quest  on  foot  to 
Phasis. 

NOT  for  us  only,  Nicias,  as  we  were  used  to 
deem,  was  Love  begotten,  by  whomsoever  of 
the  Gods  was  the  father  of  the  child  ;  not  first 
to  us  seemed  beauty  beautiful,  to  us  that  are 
mortal  men  and  look  not  on  the  morrow.  Nay, 
but  the  son  of  Amphitryon,  that  heart  of  bronze, 
who  abode  the  wild  lion's  onset,  loved  a  lad, 
beautiful  Hylas  —  Hylas  of  the  braided  locks, 
and  he  taught  him  all  things  as  a  father  teaches 
his  child,  all  whereby  himself  became  a  mighty 
man,  and  renowned  in  minstrelsy.  Never  was 
he  apart  from  Hylas,  not  when  midnoon  was 
high  in  heaven,  not  when  Dawn  with  her  white 


68  THEOCRITUS 

horses  speeds  upwards  to  the  dwelling  of  Zeus, 
not  when  the  twittering  nestlings  look  towards 
the  perch,  while  their  mother  flaps  her  wings 
above  the  smoke-browned  beam  ;  and  all  this 
that  the  lad  might  be  fashioned  to  his  mind, 
and  might  drive  a  straight  furrow,  and  come  to 
the  true  measure  of  man. 

But  when  lason,  Aeson's  son,  was  sailing 
after  the  fleece  of  gold  (and  with  him  followed 
the  champions,  the  first  chosen  out  of  all  the 
cities,  they  that  were  of  most  avail),  to  rich 
lolcos  too  came  the  mighty  man  and  adven- 
turous, the  son  of  the  woman  of  Midea,  noble 
Alcmene.  With  him  went  down  Hylas  also,  to 
Argo  of  the  goodly  benches,  the  ship  that  grazed 
not  on  the  clashing  rocks  Cyanean,  but  through 
she  sped  and  ran  into  deep  Phasis,  as  an  eagle 
over  the  mighty  gulf  of  the  sea.  And  the 
clashing  rocks  stand  fixed,  even  from  that 
hour ! 

Now  at  the  rising  of  the  Pleiades,  when  the 
upland  fields  begin  to  pasture  the  young  lambs, 
and  when  spring  is  already  on  the  wane,  then 
the  flower  divine  of  Heroes  bethought  them  of 
sea-faring.  On  board  the  hollow  Argo  they 
sat  down  to  the  oars,  and  to  the  Hellespont 
they  came  when  the  south  wind  had  been  for 
three  days  blowing,  and  made  their  haven  within 
Propontis,  where  the  oxen  of  the  Cianes  wear 
bright  the  ploughshare,  as  they  widen  the  fur- 
rows. Then  they  went  forth  upon  the  shore, 
and  each  couple  busily  got  ready  supper  in  the 
late  evening,  and  many  as  they  were  one  bed 


IDYL  XIII  69 

they  strewed  lowly  on  the  ground,  for  they  found 
a  meadow  lying,  rich  in  couches  of  strown  grass 
and  leaves.  Thence  they  cut  them  pointed 
flag -leaves,  and  deep  marsh -galingale.  And 
Hylas  of  the  yellow  hair,  with  a  vessel  of  bronze 
in  his  hand,  went  to  draw  water  against  supper- 
time,  for  Heracles  himself,  and  the  steadfast 
Telamon,  for  these  comrades  twain  supped  ever 
at  one  table.  Soon  was  he  ware  of  a  spring, 
in  a  hollow  land,  and  the  rushes  grew  thickly 
round  it,  and  dark  swallow- wort,  and  green 
maiden-hair,  and  blooming  parsley,  and  deer- 
grass  spreading  through  the  marshy  land.  In 
the  midst  of  the  water  the  nymphs  were  arraying 
their  dances,  the  sleepless  nymphs,  dread  god- 
desses of  the  country  people,  Eunice,  and  Malis, 
and  Nycheia,  with  her  April  eyes.  And  now 
the  boy  was  holding  out  the  wide  -  mouthed 
pitcher  to  the  water,  intent  on  dipping  it,  but 
the  nymphs  all  clung  to  his  hand,  for  love  of 
the  Argive  lad  had  fluttered  the  soft  hearts  of 
all  of  them.  Then  down  he  sank  into  the 
black  water,  headlong  all,  as  when  a  star  shoots 
flaming  from  the  sky,  plumb  in  the  deep  it 
falls,  and  a  mate  shouts  out  to  the  seamen, 
'  Up  with  the  gear,  my  lads,  the  wind  is  fair  for 
sailing.' 

Then  the  nymphs  held  the  weeping  boy  on 
their  laps,  and  with  gentle  words  were  striving 
to  comfort  him.  But  the  son  of  Amphitryon 
was  troubled  about  the  lad,  and  went  forth, 
carrying  his  bended  bow  in  Scythian  fashion, 
and  the  club  that  is  ever  grasped  in  his  right 


70  THEOCRITUS 

hand.  Thrice  he  shouted  '  Hylas  !'  as  loud  as 
his  deep  throat  could  call,  and  thrice  again  the 
boy  heard  him,  and  thin  came  his  voice  from 
the  water,  and,  hard  by  though  he  was,  he 
seemed  very  far  away.  And  as  when  a  bearded 
lion,  a  ravening  lion  on  the  hills,  hears  the 
bleating  of  a  fawn  afar  off,  and  rushes  forth 
from  his  lair  to  seize  it,  his  readiest  meal,  even 
so  the  mighty  Heracles,  in  longing  for  the  lad, 
sped  through  the  trackless  briars,  and  ranged 
over  much  countiy. 

Reckless  are  lovers  :  great  toils  did  Heracles 
bear,  in  hills  and  thickets  wandering,  and 
lason's  quest  was  all  postponed  to  this.  Now 
the  ship  abode  with  her  tackling  aloft,  and  the 
company  gathered  there,1  but  at  midnight  the 
young  men  were  lowering  the  sails  again,  await- 
ing Heracles.  But  he  wheresoever  his  feet 
might  lead  him  went  wandering  in  his  fury,  for 
the  cruel  Goddess  of  love  was  rending  his  heart 
within  him. 

Thus  loveliest  Hylas  is  numbered  with  the 
Blessed,  but  for  a  runaway  they  girded  at 
Heracles,  the  heroes,  because  he  roamed  from 
Argo  of  the  sixty  oarsmen.  But  on  foot  he 
came  to  Colchis  and  inhospitable  Phasis. 

1  Cf.  Wordsworth's  proposed  conjecture — 
fj.eTa.pffi,  irCiv  irapeovruv. 

Meineke  observes  '  tola  haec  carminis  pars  luxata  et 
foedissime  depravata  est. '  There  seems  to  be  a  rude 
early  pun  in  lines  73,  74. 


IDYL  XIV 

This  Idyl,  like  the  next,  is  dramatic  in  form.  One 
Aeschines  tells  Thyonichus  the  story  of  his  quarrel 
ivith  his  mistress  Cynisca.  He  speaks  of  taking 
foreign  service,  and  Thyonichus  recommends  that  of 
Ptolemy.  The  idyl  was  probably  written  at  Alex- 
andria, as  a  compliment  to  Ptolemy,  and  an  induce- 
ment to  Greiks  to  join  his  forces.  There  is  nothing, 
however,  to  fix  the  date. 

Aesc/ii/ie*.  All  hail  to  the  stout  Thyoni- 
chus ! 

Thyonichus.   As  much  to  you,  Aeschines. 

Aeschines.   How  long  it  is  since  we  met ! 

Thyonichus.  Is  it  so  long  ?  But  why,  pray, 
this  melancholy  ? 

Aeschines.  I  am  not  in  the  best  of  luck, 
Thyonichus. 

Thyonichus.  'Tis  for  that,  then,  you  are  so 
lean,  and  hence  comes  this  long  moustache, 
and  these  love-locks  all  adust.  Just  such  a 
figure  was  a  Pythagorean  that  came  here  of 
late,  barefoot  and  wan, — and  said  he  was  an 
Athenian.  Marry,  he  too  was  in  love,  methinks, 
with  a  plate  of  pancakes. 

Aeschines.   Friend,  you  will  always  have  your 


72  THEOCRITUS 

jest, — but  beautiful  Cynisca, — she  flouts  me  ! 
I  shall  go  mad  some  day,  when  no  man  looks 
for  it ;  I  am  but  a  hair's-breadth  on  the  hither 
side,  even  now. 

Thyonichus.  You  are  ever  like  this,  dear 
Aeschines,  now  mad,  now  sad,  and  crying  for 
all  things  at  your  whim.  Yet,  tell  me,  what  is 
your  new  trouble  ? 

Aeschines.  The  Argive,  and  I,  and  the 
Thessalian  rough  rider,  Apis,  and  Cleunichus 
the  free  lance,  were  drinking  together,  at 
my  farm.  I  had  killed  two  chickens,  and  a 
sucking  pig,  and  had  opened  the  Bibline  wine 
for  them, — nearly  four  years  old, — but  fragrant 
as  when  it  left  the  wine -press.  Truffles  and 
shellfish  had  been  brought  out,  it  was  a 
jolly  drinking  match.  And  when  things  were 
now  getting  forwarder,  we  determined  that  each 
of  us  should  toast  whom  he  pleased,  in  un- 
mixed wine,  only  he  must  name  his  toast.  So 
we  all  drank,  and  called  our  toasts  as  had  been 
agreed.  Yet  She  said  nothing,  though  I  was 
there  ;  how  think  you  I  liked  that  ?  '  Won't 
you  call  a  toast  ?  You  have  seen  the  wolf  ! ' 
some  one  said  in  jest,  '  as  the  proverb  goes,' l 
then  she  kindled  ;  yes,  you  could  easily  have 

1  The  reading — 
otf  <p6ey%rj ;  \IJKOV  eldes  ;  eirai^  TIS,  ws  <ro</>6s,  dire, — 

makes  good  sense,  wj  <ro<£<Ss  is  put  in  the  mouth  of  the 
girl,  and  would  mean  '  a  good  guess'!  The  allusion 
of  a  guest  to  the  superstition  that  the  wolf  struck  people 
dumb  is  taken  by  Cynisca  for  a  reference  to  young 
Wolf,  her  secret  lover. 


IDYL  XIV  73 

lighted  a  lamp  at  her  face.  There  is  one  Wolf, 
one  Wolf  there  is,  the  son  of  Labes  our  neigh- 
bour,— he  is  tall,  smooth -skinned,  many  think 
him  handsome.  His  was  that  illustrious  love 
in  which  she  was  pining,  yes,  and  a  breath 
about  the  business  once  came  secretly  to  my 
ears,  but  I  never  looked  into  it,  beshrew  my 
beard ! 

Already,  mark  you,  we  four  men  were  deep 
in  our  cups,  when  the  Larissa  man  out  of  mere 
mischief,  struck  up,  '  My  Wolf,'  some  Thes- 
salian  catch,  from  the  very  beginning.  .  Then 
Cynisca  suddenly  broke  out  weeping  more  bit- 
terly than  a  six-year-old  maid,  that  longs  for 
her  mother's  lap.  Then  I, — you  know  me, 
Thyonichus, — struck  her  on  the  cheek  with 
clenched  fist, — one  two  !  She  caught  up  her 
robes,  and  forth  she  rushed,  quicker  than  she 
came.  'Ah,  my  undoing'  (cried  I),  'I  am 
not  good  enough  for  you,  then — you  have  a 
dearer  playfellow  ?  well,  be  off  and  cherish 
your  other  lover,  'tis  for  him  your  tears  run  big 
as  apples  ! ' 1 

And  as  the  swallow  flies  swiftly  back  to 
gather  a  morsel,  fresh  food,  for  her  young  ones 
under  the  eaves,  still  swifter  sped  she  from  her 
soft  chair,  straight  through  the  vestibule  and 
folding-doors,  wherever  her  feet  carried  her. 
So,  sure,  the  old  proverb  says,  '  the  bull  has 
sought  the  wild  wood.' 

Since  then  there  are  twenty  days,  and  eight 

1  Or,  as  Wordsworth  suggests,  reading  SaKpv<ri, 
'  for  him  vour  cheeks  are  wet  with  tears.' 


74  THEOCRITUS 

to  these,  and  nine  again,  then  ten  others,  to- 
day is  the  eleventh,  add  two  more,  and  it  is 
two  months  since  we  parted,  and  I  have  not 
shaved,  not  even  in  Thracian  fashion.1 

And  now  Wolf  is  everything  with  her.  Wolf 
finds  the  door  open  o'  nights,  and  I  am  of  no 
account,  not  in  the  reckoning,  like  the  wretched 
men  of  Megara,  in  the  place  dishonourable. - 

And  if  I  could  cease  to  love,  the  world  would 
wag  as  well  as  may  be.  But  now, — now, — as 
they  say,  Thyonichus,  I  am  like  the  mouse 
that  has  tasted  pitch.  And  what  remedy  there 
may  be  for  a  bootless  love,  I  know  not  ;  except 
that  Simus,  he  who  was  in  love  with  the 
daughter  of  Epicalchus,  went  over  seas,  and 
came  back  heart-whole, — a  man  of  my  own 
age.  And  I  too  will  cross  the  water,  and  prove 
not  the  first,  maybe,  nor  the  last,  perhaps,  but 
a  fair  soldier  as  times  go. 

Thyonichus.  Would  that  things  had  gone  to 
your  mind,  Aeschines.  But  if,  in  good  earnest, 
you  are  thus  set  on  going  into  exile,  PTOLEMY 
is  the  free  man's  best  paymaster  ! 

Aeschines.  And  in  other  respects,  what  kind 
of  man  ? 

1  Shaving  in  the  bronze,  and  still  more,  of  course,  in 
the  stone  age,  was  an  uncomfortable  and  difficult  pro- 
cess.     The  backward   and    barbarous  Thracians  were 
therefore  trimmed  in  the  roughest  way,  like  Aeschines, 
with  his  long  gnawed  moustache. 

2  The    Megarians   having    inquired    of   the    Delphic 
oracle  as  to  their  rank  among  Greek  cities,  were  told 
that  they  were  absolute  last,  and  not  in  the  reckoning  at 
all. 


IDYL  XIV  75 

Thyonichus.  The  free  man's  best  paymaster! 
Indulgent  too,  the  Muses'  darling,  a  true  lover, 
the  top  of  good  company,  knows  his  friends, 
and  still  better  knows  his  enemies.  A  great 
giver  to  many,  refuses  nothing  that  he  is  asked 
which  to  give  may  beseem  a  king,  but,  Aes- 
chines,  we  should  not  always  be  asking.  Thus, 
if  you  are  minded  to  pin  up  the  top  corner  of 
your  cloak  over  the  right  shoulder,  and  if  you 
have  the  heart  to  stand  steady  on  both  feet, 
and  bide  the  brunt  of  a  hardy  targeteer,  off 
instantly  to  Egypt  !  From  the  temples  down- 
ward we  all  wax  grey,  and  on  to  the  chin 
creeps  the  rime  of  age,  men  must  do  somewhat 
while  their  knees  are  yet  nimble. 


IDYL  XV 

This  famous  idyl  should  rather,  perhaps,  be  called  a 
mimus.  //  describes  tlie  visit  paid  by  two  Syracusan 
•women  residing  in  Alexandria,  to  the  festival  of  the 
resurrection  of  Adonis.  The  festival  is  given  by 
Arsinoe,  wife  and  sister  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphia, 
and  the  poem  cannot  have  been  written  earlier  than 
his  marriage,  in  266  B.  C.  [?]  Nothing  can  be  more 
gay  and  natural  than  the  chatter  of  the  women, 
which  has  changed  no  more  in  two  thousand  years 
than  the  song  of  birds.  Theocritus  is  believed  to 
have  had  a  model  for  this  idyl  in  the  Isthmiazusae 
of  Soph  ran,  an  older  poet.  In  the  Isthmiazusae  two 
ladies  described  the  spectacle  of  the  Isthmian  games. 

Gorgo.   Is  Praxinoe  at  home  ? 

Praxinoe.  Dear  Gorgo,  how  long  it  is  since 
you  have  been  here  !  She  is  at  home.  The 
wonder  is  that  you  have  got  here  at  last  ! 
Eunoe,  see  that  she  has  a  chair.  Throw  a 
cushion  on  it  too. 

Gorgo.   It  does  most  charmingly  as  it  is. 

Praxinoe.   Do  sit  down. 

Gorgo.  Oh,  what  a  thing  spirit  is  !  I  have 
scarcely  got  to  you  alive,  Praxinoe !  What 
a  huge  crowd,  what  hosts  of  four-in-hands  ! 
Everywhere  cavalry  boots,  everywhere  men  in 


IDYL  XV  77 

uniform  !  And  the  road  is  endless :  yes,  you 
really  live  too  far  away  ! 

Praxinoe.  It  is  all  the  fault  of  that  madman 
of  mine.  Here  he  came  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth  and  took — a  hole,  not  a  house,  and  all 
that  we  might  not  be  neighbours.  The 
jealous  wretch,  always  the  same,  ever  for 
spite  ! 

Gorgo.  Don't  talk  of  your  husband,  Dinon, 
like  that,  my  dear  girl,  before  the  little  boy, — 
look  how  he  is  staring  at  you  !  Never  mind, 
Zopyrion,  sweet  child,  she  is  not  speaking 
about  papa. 

Praxinoe.  Our  Lady  !  the  child  takes 
notice.1 

Gorgo.  Nice  papa ! 

Praxinoe.  That  papa  of  his  the  other  day — 
we  call  every  day  'the  other  day' — went  to 
get  soap  and  rouge  at  the  shop,  and  back  he 
came  to  me  with  salt — the  great  big  endless 
fellow ! 

Gorgo.  Mine  has  the  same  trick,  too,  a  per- 
fect spendthrift — Diocleides  !  Yesterday  he 
got  what  he  meant  for  five  fleeces,  and  paid 
seven  shillings  a  piece  for — what  do  you  sup- 
pose ? — dogskins,  shreds  of  old  leather  wallets, 
mere  trash — trouble  on  trouble.  But  come, 
take  your  cloak  and  shawl.  Let  us  be  off  to 
the  palace  of  rich  Ptolemy,  the  King,  to  see 

1  Our  Lady,  here,  is  Persephone.  The  ejaculation 
served  for  the  old  as  well  as  for  the  new  religion  of 
Sicily.  The  dialogue  is  here  arranged  as  in  Fritzsche's 
text,  and  in  line  8  his  punctuation  is  followed. 


78  THEOCRITUS 

the  Adonis  ;  I  hear  the  Queen  has  provided 
something  splendid  ! 

Praxinoe.   Fine  folks  do  everything  finely. 

Gorgo.  What  a  tale  you  will  have  to  tell 
about  the  things  you  have  seen,  to  any  one  who 
has  not  seen  them  !  It  seems  nearly  time  to 
go- 

Praxinoe.  Idlers  have  always  holiday.  Eu- 
noe,  bring  the  water  and  put  it  down  in  the 
middle  of  the  room,  lazy  creature  that  you  are. 
Cats  like  always  to  sleep  soft !  l  Come,  bustle, 
bring  the  water  ;  quicker.  I  want  water  first, 
and  how  she  carries  it !  give  it  me  all  the 
same  ;  don't  pour  out  so  much,  you  extravagant 
thing.  Stupid  girl !  Why  are  you  wetting 
my  dress  ?  There,  stop,  I  have  washed  my 
hands,  as  heaven  would  have  it.  Where  is  the 
key  of  the  big  chest  ?  Bring  it  here. 

Gorgo.  Praxinoe,  that  full  body  becomes  you 
wonderfully.  Tell  me  how  much  did  the  stuff 
cost  you  just  off  the  loom  ? 

Praxinoe.  Don't  speak  of  it,  Gorgo!  More 
than  eight  pounds  in  good  silver  money, — and 
the  work  on  it  !  I  nearly  slaved  my  soul  out 
over  it ! 

Gorgo.  Well,  it  is  most  successful ;  all  you 
could  wish.2 

Praxinoe.  Thanks    for   the    pretty    speech  ! 

1  If  cats  are  meant,  the  proverb  is  probably  Alex- 
andrian.    Common  as  cats  were  in  Egypt,  they  were 
late  comers  in  Greece. 

2  Most  of  the  dialogue  has  been  distributed  as  in  the 
text  of  Fritzsche. 


IDYL  XV  79 

Bring  my  shawl,  and  set  my  hat  on  my  head, 
the  fashionable  way.  No,  child,  I  don't  mean 
to  take  you.  Boo  !  Bogies  !  There's  a  horse 
that  bites  !  Cry  as  much  as  you  please,  but  I 
cannot  have  you  lamed.  Let  us  be  moving. 
Phrygia  take  the  child,  and  keep  him  amused, 
call  in  the  dog,  and  shut  the  street  door. 

[  They  go  into  the  street. 

Ye  gods,  what  a  crowd  !  How  on  earth  are 
we  ever  to  get  through  this  coil  ?  They  are 
like  ants  that  no  one  can  measure  or  number. 
Many  a  good  deed  have  you  done,  Ptolemy  ; 
since  your  father  joined  the  immortals,  there's 
never  a  malefactor  to  spoil  the  passer  -  by, 
creeping  on  him  in  Egyptian  fashion  —  oh  ! 
the  tricks  those  perfect  rascals  used  to  play. 
Birds  of  a  feather,  ill  jesters,  scoundrels  all ! 
Dear  Gorgo,  what  will  become  of  us  ?  Here 
come  the  King's  war-horses  !  My  dear  man, 
don't  trample  on  me.  Look,  the  bay's  rearing, 
see,  what  temper  !  Eunoe,  you  foolhardy  girl, 
will  you  never  keep  out  of  the  way  ?  The 
beast  will  kill  the  man  that's  leading  him. 
What  a  good  thing  it  is  for  me  that  my  brat 
stays  safe  at  home. 

Gorgo.  Courage,  Praxinoe.  We  are  safe 
behind  them,  now,  and  they  have  gone  to 
their  station. 

Praxinoe.  There !  I  begin  to  be  myself 
again.  Ever  since  I  was  a  child  I  have  feared 
nothing  so  much  as  horses  and  the  chilly 
snake.  Come  along,  the  huge  mob  is  over- 
flowing us. 


8o  THEOCRITUS 

Gorgo  (to  an  old  Woman).  Are  you  from  the 
Court,  mother  ? 

Old  Woman.    I  am,  my  child. 

Praxinoe.   Is  it  easy  to  get  there  ? 

Old  Woman.  The  Achaeans  got  into  Troy 
by  trying,  my  prettiest  of  ladies.  Trying  will 
do  everything  in  the  long  run. 

Gorgo.  The  old  wife  has  spoken  her  oracles, 
and  off  she  goes. 

Praxinoe.  Women  know  everything,  yes, 
and  how  Zeus  married  Hera  ! 

Gorgo.  See  Praxinoe,  what  a  crowd  there  is 
about  the  doors. 

Praxinoe.  Monstrous,  Gorgo  !  Give  me 
your  hand,  and  you,  Eunoe,  catch  hold  of 
Eutychis  ;  never  lose  hold  of  her,  for  fear  lest 
you  get  lost.  Let  us  all  go  in  together ; 
Eunoe,  clutch  tight  to  me.  Oh,  how  tiresome, 
Gorgo,  my  muslin  veil  is  torn  in  two  already ! 
For  heaven's  sake,  sir,  if  you  ever  wish  to  be 
fortunate,  take  care  of  my  shawl ! 

Stranger.  I  can  hardly  help  myself,  but  for 
all  that  I  will  be  as  careful  as  I  can. 

Praxinoe.  How  close -packed  the  mob  is, 
they  hustle  like  a  herd  of  swine. 

Stranger.  Courage,  lady,  all  is  well  with  us 
now. 

Praxinoe.  Both  this  year  and  for  ever  may 
all  be  well  with  you,  my  dear  sir,  for  your  care 
of  us.  A  good  kind  man  !  We're  letting 
Eunoe  get  squeezed  —  come,  wretched  girl, 
push  your  way  through.  That  is  the  way. 
We  are  all  on  the  right  side  of  the  door,  quoth 


IDYL  XV  81 

the  bridegroom,  when  he  had  shut  himself  in 
with  his  bride. 

Gorgo.  Do  come  here,  Praxinoe.  Look  first 
at  these  embroideries.  How  light  and  how 
lovely !  You  will  call  them  the  garments  of 
the  gods. 

Praxinoe.  Lady  Athene,  what  spinning 
women  wrought  them,  what  painters  designed 
these  drawings,  so  true  they  are  ?  How 
naturally  they  stand  and  move,  like  living 
creatures,  not  patterns  woven.  What  a  clever 
thing  is  man  !  Ah,  and  himself — Adonis — 
how  beautiful  to  behold  he  lies  on  his  silver 
couch,  with  the  first  down  on  his  cheeks,  the 
thrice -beloved  Adonis, — Adonis  beloved  even 
among  the  dead. 

A  Stranger.  You  weariful  women,  do  cease 
your  endless  cooing  talk  !  They  bore  one  to 
death  with  their  eternal  broad  vowels  ! 

Gorgo.  Indeed !  And  where  may  this 
person  come  from  ?  What  is  it  to  you  if  we 
are  chatterboxes  !  Give  orders  to  your  own 
servants,  sir.  Do  you  pretend  to  command 
ladies  of  Syracuse  ?  If  you  must  know,  we 
are  Corinthians  by  descent,  like  Bellerophon 
himself,  and  we  speak  Peloponnesian.  Dorian 
women  may  lawfully  speak  Doric,  I  presume  ? 

Praxinoe.  Lady  Persephone,  never  may  we 
have  more  than  one  master.  I  am  not  afraid 
oiyour  putting  me  on  short  commons. 

Gorgo.  Hush,  hush,  Praxinoe  —  the  Argive 
woman's  daughter,  the  great  singer,  is  begin- 
ning the  Adonis j  she  that  won  the  prize  last 
G 


82  THEOCRITUS 

year  for  dirge-singing.1  I  am  sure  she  will 
give  us  something  lovely  ;  see,  she  is  preluding 
with  her  airs  and  graces. 

The  Psalm  of  Adonis. 

O  Queen  that  lovest  Golgi,  and  Idalium,  and 
the  steep  of  Eryx,  O  Aphrodite,  that  playest 
with  gold,  lo,  from  the  stream  eternal  of 
Acheron  they  have  brought  back  to  thee 
Adonis — even  in  the  twelfth  month  they  have 
brought  him,  the  dainty-footed  Hours.  Tardi- 
est of  the  Immortals  are  the  beloved  Hours, 
but  dear  and  desired  they  come,  for  always,  to 
all  mortals,  they  bring  some  gift  with  them. 
O  Cypris,  daughter  of  Dione,  from  mortal  to 
immortal,  so  men  tell,  thou  hast  changed 
Berenice,  dropping  softly  in  the  woman's  breast 
the  stuff  of  immortality. 

Therefore,  for  thy  delight,  O  thou  of  many 
names  and  many  temples,  doth  the  daughter 
of  Berenice,  even  Arsinoe,  lovely  as  Helen, 
cherish  Adonis  with  all  things  beautiful. 

Before  him  lie  all  ripe  fruits  that  the  tall 
trees'  branches  bear,  and  the  delicate  gardens, 
arrayed  in  baskets  of  silver,  and  the  golden 
vessels  are  full  of  incense  of  Syria.  And  all 
the  dainty  cakes  that  women  fashion  in  the 
kneading-tray,  mingling  blossoms  manifold  with 
the  white  wheaten  flour,  all  that  is  wrought  of 
honey  sweet,  and  in  soft  olive  oil,  all  cakes 
fashioned  in  the  semblance  of  things  that  fly, 

1  Reading  irtpwiv. 


IDYL  XV  83 

and  of  things  that  creep,  lo,  here  they  are  set 
before  him. 

Here  are  built  for  him  shadowy  bowers  of 
green,  all  laden  with  tender  anise,  and  children 
flit  overhead — the  little  Loves — as  the  young 
nightingales  perched  upon  the  trees  fly  forth 
and  try  their  wings  from  bough  to  bough. 

O  the  ebony,  O  the  gold,  O  the  twin  eagles 
of  white  ivory  that  carry  to  Zeus  the  son  of 
Cronos  his  darling,  his  cup-bearer !  O  the 
purple  coverlet  strewn  above,  more  soft  than 
sleep !  So  Miletus  will  say,  and  whoso  feeds 
sheep  in  Samos. 

Another  bed  is  strewn  for  beautiful  Adonis, 
one  bed  Cypris  keeps,  and  one  the  rosy-armed 
Adonis.  A  bridegroom  of  eighteen  or  nine- 
teen years  is  he,  his  kisses  are  not  rough,  the 
golden  down  being  yet  upon  his  lips  !  And 
now,  good-night  to  Cypris,  in  the  arms  of  her 
lover !  But  lo,  in  the  morning  we  will  all  of 
us  gather  with  the  dew,  and  carry  him  forth 
among  the  waves  that  break  upon  the  beach, 
and  with  locks  unloosed,  and  ungirt  raiment 
falling  to  the  ankles,  and  bosoms  bare  will  we 
begin  our  shrill  sweet  song. 

Thou  only,  dear  Adonis,  so  men  tell,  thou 
only  of  the  demigods  dost  visit  both  this  world 
and  the  stream  of  Acheron.  For  Agamemnon 
had  no  such  lot,  nor  Aias,  that  mighty  lord  of 
the  terrible  anger,  nor  Hector,  the  eldest  born 
of  the  twenty  sons  of  Hecabe,  nor  Patroclus, 
nor  Pyrrhus,  that  returned  out  of  Troyland, 
nor  the  heroes  of  yet  more  ancient  days,  the 


84  THEOCRITUS 

Lapithae  and  Deucalion's  sons,  nor  the  sons  of 
Pelops,  and  the  chiefs  of  Pelasgian  Argos. 
Be  gracious  now,  dear  Adonis,  and  propitious 
even  in  the  coming  year.  Dear  to  us  has 
thine  advent  been,  Adonis,  and  dear  shall  it 
be  when  thou  comest  again. 

Gorgo.  Praxinoe,  the  woman  is  cleverer  than 
we  fancied  !  Happy  woman  to  know  so  much, 
thrice  happy  to  have  so  sweet  a  voice.  Well, 
all  the  same,  it  is  time  to  be  making  for  home. 
Diocleides  has  not  had  his  dinner,  and  the 
man  is  all  vinegar, — don't  venture  near  him 
when  he  is  kept  waiting  for  dinner.  Farewell, 
beloved  Adonis,  may  you  find  us  glad  at  your 
next  coming  ! 


IDYL  XVI 

In  265  B.C.  Sicily  was  devastated  by  the  Carthaginians, 
and  by  the  companies  of  disciplined  free-lances  who 
called  themselves  Mamertines,  or  Mars's  men.  The 
hopes  of  the  Greek  inhabitants  of  the  island  were 
centred  in  Hiero,  son  of  Hierocles,  who  was  about 
to  besiege  Messana  (then  held  by  tfie  Carthaginians'] 
and  who  had  revived  the  courage  of  the  Syracusans. 
To  him  Theocritus  addressed  this  idyl,  in  which  he 
complains  of  the  sordid  indifference  of  the  rich, 
rehearses  the  merits  of  song,  dilates  on  the  true 
nature  of  wealth,  and  of  the  happy  life,  and  finally 
expresses  his  hope  that  Hiero  will  rid  the  isle  of  the 
foreign  foe,  and  will  restore  peace  and  pastoral  joys. 
The  idyl  contains  some  allusions  to  Simonides,  the 
old  lyric  poet,  and  to  his  relations  with  the  famous 
Hiero  tyrant  of  Syracuse, 

EVER  is  this  the  care  of  the  maidens  of 
Zeus,  ever  the  care  of  minstrels,  to  sing  the 
Immortals,  to  sing  the  praises  of  noble  men. 
The  Muses,  lo,  are  Goddesses,  of  Gods  the 
Goddesses  sing,  but  we  on  earth  are  mortal 
men  ;  let  us  mortals  sing  of  mortals.  Ah,  who 
of  all  them  that  dwell  beneath  the  grey  morning, 
will  open  his  door  and  gladly  receive  our  Graces 
within  his  house  ?  who  is  there  that  will  not 
send  them  back  again  without  a  gift  ?  And 


86  THEOCRITUS 

they  with  looks  askance,  and  naked  feet  come 
homewards,  and  sorely  they  upbraid  me  when 
they  have  gone  on  a  vain  journey,  and  listless 
again  in  the  bottom  of  their  empty  coffer,  they 
dwell  with  heads  bowed  over  their  chilly  knees, 
where  is  their  drear  abode,  when  gainless 
they  return. 

Where  is  there  such  an  one,  among  men  to- 
day ?  Where  is  he  that  will  befriend  him  that 
speaks  his  praises  ?  I  know  not,  for  now  no 
longer,  as  of  old,  are  men  eager  to  win  the 
renown  of  noble  deeds,  nay,  they  are  the  slaves 
of  gain  !  Each  man  clasps  his  hands  below 
the  purse-fold  of  his  gown,  and  looks  about  to 
spy  whence  he  may  get  him  money  :  the  very 
rust  is  too  precious  to  be  rubbed  off  for  a  gift. 
Nay,  each  has  his  ready  saw ;  the  shin  is 
further  than  the  knee ;  first  let  me  get  my  own  ! 
'  Tis  the  Gods'  affair  to  honour  minstrels ! 
Homer  is  enough  for  every  one,  who  wants  to 
hear  any  other  ?  He  is  the  best  of  bards  who 
takes  nothing  that  is  mine. 

O  foolish  men,  in  the  store  of  gold  un- 
counted, what  gain  have  ye  ?  Not  in  this  do 
the  wise  find  the  true  enjoyment  of  wealth,  but 
in  that  they  can  indulge  their  own  desires,  and 
something  bestow  on  one  of  the  minstrels,  and 
do  good  deeds  to  many  of  their  kin,  and  to 
many  another  man  ;  and  always  give  altar-rites 
to  the  Gods,  nor  ever  play  the  churlish  host, 
but  kindly  entreat  the  guest  at  table,  and 
speed  him  when  he  would  be  gone.  And  this, 
above  all,  to  honour  the  holy  interpreters  of  the 


IDYL  XVI  87 

Muses,  that  so  them  mayest  have  a  goodly 
fame,  even  when  hidden  in  Hades,  nor  ever 
moan  without  renown  by  the  chill  water  of 
Acheron,  like  one  whose  palms  the  spade  has 
hardened,  some  landless  man  bewailing  the 
poverty  that  is  all  his  heritage. 

Many  were  the  thralls  that  in  the  palace  of 
Antiochus,  and  of  king  Aleuas  drew  out  their 
monthly  dole,  many  the  calves  that  were  driven 
to  the  penns  of  the  Scopiadae,  and  lowed  with 
the  horned  kine  :  countless  on  the  Crannonian 
plain  did  shepherds  pasture  beneath  the  sky 
the  choicest  sheep  of  the  hospitable  Creondae, 
yet  from  all  this  they  had  no  joy,  when  once 
into  the  wide  raft  of  hateful  Acheron  they  had 
breathed  sweet  life  away  !  Yea,  unremembered 
(though  they  had  left  all  that  rich  store),  for 
ages  long  would  they  have  lain  among  the  dead 
forlorn,  if  a  name  among  later  men  the  skilled 
Ceian  minstrel  had  spared  to  bestow,  singing 
his  bright  songs  to  a  harp  of  many  strings. 
Honour  too  was  won  by  the  swift  steeds  that 
came  home  to  them  crowned  from  the  sacred 
contests. 

And  who  would  ever  have  known  the  Lycian 
champions  of  time  past,  who  Priam's  long- 
haired sons,  and  Cycnus,  white  of  skin  as  a 
maiden,  if  minstrels  had  not  chanted  of  the  war 
cries  of  the  old  heroes  ?  Nor  would  Odysseus 
have  won  his  lasting  glory,  for  all  his  ten  years' 
wandering  among  all  folks  ;  and  despite  the 
visit  he  paid,  he  a  living  man,  to  inmost  Hades, 
and  for  all  his  escape  from  the  murderous 


88  THEOCRITUS 

Cyclops's  cave, — unheard  too  were  the  names 
of  the  swineherd  Eumaeus,  and  of  Philoetius, 
busy  with  the  kine  of  the  herds  ;  yea,  and  even 
of  Laertes,  high  of  heart  ;  if  the  songs  of  the 
Ionian  man  had  not  kept  them  in  renown. 

From  the  Muses  comes  a  goodly  report  to 
men,  but  the  living  heirs  devour  the  possessions 
of  the  dead.  But,  lo,  it  is  as  light  labour  to 
count  the  waves  upon  the  beach,  as  many  as 
wind  and  grey  sea-tide  roll  upon  the  shore,  or 
in  violet-hued  water  to  cleanse  away  the  stain 
from  a  potsherd,  as  to  win  favour  from  a  man 
that  is  smitten  with  the  greed  of  gain.  Good- 
day  to  such  an  one,  and  countless  be  his  coin, 
and  ever  may  he  be  possessed  by  a  longing 
desire  for  more  !  But  I  for  my  part  would 
choose  honour  and  the  loving-kindness  of  men, 
far  before  wealth  in  mules  and  horses. 

I  am  seeking  to  what  mortal  I  may  come,  a 
welcome  guest,  with  the  help  of  the  Muses, 
for  hard  indeed  do  minstrels  find  the  ways, 
who  go  uncompanioned  by  the  daughters  of 
deep-counselling  Zeus.  Not  yet  is  the  heaven 
aweary  of  rolling  the  months  onwards,  and  the 
years,  and  many  a  horse  shall  yet  whirl  the 
chariot  wheels,  and  the  man  shall  yet  be  found, 
who  will  take  me  for  his  minstrel ;  a  man  of 
deeds  like  those  that  great  Achilles  wrought,  or 
puissant  Aias,  in  the  plain  of  Simois,  where  is 
the  tomb  of  Phrygian  Ilus. 

Even  now  the  Phoenicians  that  dwell  be- 
neath the  setting  sun  on  the  spur  of  Libya, 
shudder  for  dread,  even  now  the  Syracusans 


IDYL  XVI  89 

poise  lances  in  rest,  and  their  arms  are  bur- 
dened by  the  linden  shields.  Among  them 
Hiero,  like  the  mighty  men  of  old,  girds  him- 
self for  fight,  and  the  horse  -  hair  crest  is 
shadowing  his  helmet.  Ah,  Zeus,  our  father 
renowned,  and  ah,  lady  Athene,  and  O  thou 
Maiden  that  with  the  Mother  dost  possess  the 
great  burg  of  the  rich  Ephyreans,  by  the 
water  of  Lusimeleia,1  would  that  dire  necessity 
may  drive  our  foemen  from  the  isle,  along  the 
Sardinian  wave,  to  tell  the  doom  of  their  friends 
to  children  and  to  wives — messengers  easy  to 
number  out  of  so  many  warriors  !  But  as  for 
our  cities  may  they  again  be  held  by  their 
ancient  masters, —  all  the  cities  that  hostile 
hands  have  utterly  spoiled.  May  our  people 
till  the  flowering  fields,  and  may  thousands  of 
sheep  unnumbered  fatten  'mid  the  herbage,  and 
bleat  along  the  plain,  while  the  kine  as  they 
come  in  droves  to  the  stalls  warn  the  belated 
traveller  to  hasten  on  his  way.  May  the  fallows 
be  broken  for  the  seed-time,  while  the  cicala, 
watching  the  shepherds  as  they  toil  in  the  sun, 
in  the  shade  of  the  trees  doth  sing  on  the  top- 
most sprays.  May  spiders  weave  their  delicate 
webs  over  martial  gear,  may  none  any  more  so 
much  as  name, the  cry  of  onset  ! 

But  the  fame  of  Hiero  may  minstrels  bear 
aloft,  across  the  Scythian  sea,  and  where 
Semiramis  reigned,  that  built  the  mighty  wall, 

1  I.e.  Syracuse,  a  colony  of  the  Ephyraeans  or  Cor- 
inthians. The  Maiden  is  Persephone,  the  Mother 
Demeter. 


90  THEOCRITUS 

and  made  it  fast  with  slime  for  mortar.  I  am 
but  one  of  many  that  are  loved  by  the  daughters 
of  Zeus,  and  they  all  are  fain  to  sing  of  Sicilian 
Arethusa,  with  the  people  of  the  isle,  and  the 
warrior  Hiero.  O  Graces,  ye  Goddesses, 
adored  of  Eteocles,  ye  that  love  Orchomenos 
of  the  Minyae,  the  ancient  enemy  of  Thebes, 
when  no  man  bids  me,  let  me  abide  at  home, 
but  to  the  houses  of  such  as  bid  me,  boldly  let 
me  come  with  my  Muses.  Nay,  neither  the 
Muses  nor  you  Graces  will  I  leave  behind,  for 
without  the  Graces  what  have  men  that  is 
desirable  ?  with  the  Graces  of  song  may  I 
dwell  for  ever ! 


IDYL    XVII 

The.  poet  praises  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  in  a  strain  of 
almost  religious  adoration.  Hauler,  in  his  Life  of 
Theocritus,  dates  the  poem  about  259  B.C.,  but  it 
may  have  been  many  years  earlier. 

FROM  Zeus  let  us  begin,  and  with  Zeus  make 
end,  ye  Muses,  whensoever  we  chant  in  songs 
the  chiefest  of  immortals  !  But  of  men,  again, 
let  Ptolemy  be  named,  among  the  foremost,  and 
last,  and  in  the  midmost  place,  for  of  men  he  hath 
the  pre-eminence.  The  heroes  that  in  old  days 
were  begotten  of  the  demigods,  wrought  noble 
deeds,  and  chanced  on  minstrels  skilled,  but  I, 
with  what  skill  I  have  in  song,  would  fain  make 
my  hymn  of  Ptolemy,  and  hymns  are  the  glori- 
ous meed,  yea,  of  the  very  immortals. 

When  the  feller  hath  come  up  to  wooded 
Ida,  he  glances  around,  so  many  are  the  trees, 
to  see  whence  he  should  begin  his  labour. 
Where  first  shall  /  begin  the  tale,  for  there  are 
countless  things  ready  for  the  telling,  wherewith 
the  Gods  have  graced  the  most  excellent  of 
kings  ? 

Even  by  virtue  of  his  sires,  how  mighty  was 
he  to  accomplish  some  great  work, — Ptolemy 


92  THEOCRITUS 

son  of  Lagus, — when  he  had  stored  in  his 
mind  such  a  design,  as  no  other  man  was  able 
even  to  devise  !  Him  hath  the  Father  stablished 
in  the  same  honour  as  the  blessed  immortals, 
and  for  him  a  golden  mansion  in  the  house 
of  Zeus  is  builded ;  beside  him  is  throned 
Alexander,  that  dearly  loves  him,  Alexander,  a 
grievous  god  to  the  white-turbaned  Persians. 

And  over  against  them  is  set  the  throne  of 
Heracles,  the  slayer  of  the  Bull,  wrought  of 
stubborn  adamant.  There  holds  he  festival 
with  the  rest  of  the  heavenly  host,  rejoicing 
exceedingly  in  his  far-off  children's  children,  for 
that  the  son  of  Cronos  hath  taken  old  age 
clean  away  from  their  limbs,  and  they  are 
called  immortals,  being  his  offspring.  For  the 
strong  son  of  Heracles  is  ancestor  of  the  twain, 
and  both  are  reckoned  to  Heracles,  on  the 
utmost  of  the  lineage. 

Therefore  when  he  hath  now  had  his  fill  of 
fragrant  nectar,  and  is  going  from  the  feast  to 
the  bower  of  his  bed-fellow  dear,  to  one  of  his 
children  he  gives  his  bow,  and  the  quiver  that 
swings  beneath  his  elbow,  to  the  other  his 
knotted  mace  of  iron.  Then  they  to  the 
ambrosial  bower  of  white-ankled  Hera,  convey 
the  weapons  and  the  bearded  son  of  Zeus. 

Again,  how  shone  renowned  Berenice  among 
the  wise  of  womankind,  how  great  a  boon  was 
she  to  them  that  begat  her !  Yea,  in  her 
fragrant  breast  did  the  Lady  of  Cyprus,  the 
queenly  daughter  of  Dione,  lay  her  slender 
hands,  wherefore  they  say  that  never  any 


IDYL  XVII  93 

woman  brought  man  such  delight  as  came 
from  the  love  borne  to  his  wife  by  Ptolemy. 
And  verily  he  was  loved  again  with  far  greater 
love,  and  in  such  a  wedlock  a  man  may  well 
trust  all  his  house  to  his  children,  whensoever  he 
goes  to  the  bed  of  one  that  loves  him  as  he  loves 
her.  But  the  mind  of  a  woman  that  loves  not  is 
set  ever  on  a  stranger,  and  she  hath  children 
at  her  desire,  but  they  are  never  like  the  father. 

O  thou  that  amongst  the  Goddesses  hast 
the  prize  of  beauty,  O  Lady  Aphrodite,  thy 
care  was  she,  and  by  thy  favour  the  lovely 
Berenice  crossed  not  Acheron,  the  river  of 
mourning,  but  thou  didst  catch  her  away,  ere 
she  came  to  the  dark  water,  and  to  the  still- 
detested  ferryman  of  souls  outworn,  and  in  thy 
temple  didst  thou  instal  her,  and  gavest  her  a 
share  of  thy  worship.  Kindly  is  she  to  all 
mortals,  and  she  breathes  into  them  soft  desires, 
and  she  lightens  the  cares  of  him  that  is  in 
longing. 

O  dark-browed  lady  of  Argos,1  in  wedlock 
with  Tydeus  didst  thou  bear  slaying  Diomede, 
a  hero  of  Calydon,  and,  again,  deep-bosomed 
Thetis  to  Peleus,  son  of  Aeacus,  bare  the  spear- 
man Achilles.  But  thee,  O  warrior  Ptolemy,  to 
Ptolemy  the  warrior  bare  the  glorious  Berenice  ! 
And  Cos  did  foster  thee,  when  thou  wert  still 
a  child  new-born,  and  received  thee  at  thy 
mother's  hand,  when  thou  saw'st  thy  first 
dawning.  For  there  she  called  aloud  on 
Eilithyia,  loosener  of  the  girdle  ;  she  called, 
1  Deipyle,  daughter  of  Adrastus. 


94  THEOCRITUS 

the  daughter  of  Antigone,  when  heavy  on  her 
came  the  pangs  of  childbirth.  And  Eilithyia 
was  present  to  help  her,  and  so  poured  over  all 
her  limbs  release  from  pain.  Then  the  be- 
loved child  was  born,  his  father's  very  counter- 
part. And  Cos  brake  forth  into  a  cry,  when 
she  beheld  it,  and  touching  the  child  with  kind 
hands,  she  said  : 

'  Blessed,  O  child,  mayst  thou  be,  and  me 
mayst  thou  honour  even  as  Phoebus  Apollo 
honours  Delos  of  the  azure  crown,  yea,  stablish 
in  the  same  renown  the  Triopean  hill,  and  allot 
such  glory  to  the  Dorians  dwelling  nigh,  as  that 
wherewithal  Prince  Apollo  favours  Rhenaea.' 

Lo,  thus  spake  the  Isle,  but  far  aloft  under 
the  clouds  a  great  eagle  screamed  thrice  aloud, 
the  ominous  bird  of  Zeus.  This  sign,  methinks, 
was  of  Zeus ;  Zeus,  the  son  of  Cronos,  in  his 
care  hath  awful  kings,  but  he  is  above  all, 
whom  Zeus  loved  from  the  first,  even  from  his 
birth.  Great  fortune  goes  with  him,  and  much 
land  he  rules,  and  wide  sea. 

Countless  are  the  lands,  and  tribes  of  men 
innumerable  win  increase  of  the  soil  that  waxeth 
under  the  rain  of  Zeus,  but  no  land  brings 
forth  so  much  as  low-lying  Egypt,  when  Nile 
wells  up  and  breaks  the  sodden  soil.  Nor  is 
there  any  land  that  hath  so  many  towns  of  men 
skilled  in  handiwork  ;  therein  are  three  cen- 
turies of  cities  builded,  and  thousands  three, 
and  to  these  three  myriads,  and  cities  twice 
three,  and  beside  these,  three  times  nine,  and 
over  them  all  high-hearted  Ptolemy  is  king. 


IDYL  XVII  95 

Yea,  and  he  takelh  him  a  portion  of  Phoe- 
nicia, and  of  Arabia,  and  of  Syria,  and  of  Libya, 
and  the  black  Aethiopians.  And  he  is  lord  of 
all  the  Pamphylians,  and  the  Cilician  warriors, 
and  the  Lycians,  and  the  Carians,  that  joy  in 
battle,  and  lord  of  the  isles  of  the  Cyclades, — 
since  his  are  the  best  of  ships  that  sail  over 
the  deep, — yea,  all  the  sea,  and  land  and  the 
sounding  rivers  are  ruled  by  Ptolemy.  Many 
are  his  horsemen,  and  many  his  targeteers  that 
go  clanging  in  harness  of  shining  bronze.  And 
in  weight  of  wealth  he  surpasses  all  kings ; 
such  treasure  comes  day  by  day  from  every 
side  to  his  rich  palace,  while  the  people  are 
busy  about  their  labours  in  peace.  For  never 
hath  a  foeman  marched  up  the  bank  of  teaming 
Nile,  and  raised  the  cry  of  war  in  villages  not 
his  own,  nor  hath  any  cuirassed  enemy  leaped 
ashore  from  his  swift  ship,  to  harry  the  kine  of 
Egypt.  So  mighty  a  hero  hath  his  throne 
established  in  the  broad  plains,  even  Ptolemy 
of  the  fair  hair,  a  spearman  skilled,  whose  care 
is  above  all,  as  a  good  king's  should  be,  to 
keep  all  the  heritage  of  his  fathers,  and  yet 
more  he  himself  doth  win.  Nay,  nor  useless 
in  his  wealthy  house,  is  the  gold,  like  piled 
stores  of  the  still  toilsome  ants,  but  the  glorious 
temples  of  the  gods  have  their  rich  share,  for 
constant  first-fruits  he  renders,  with  many  an- 
other due,  and  much  is  lavished  on  mighty 
kings,  much  on  cities,  much  on  faithful  friends. 
And  never  to  the  sacred  contests  of  Dionysus 
comes  any  man  that  is  skilled  to  raise  the  shrill 


96  THEOCRITUS 

sweet  song,  but  Ptolemy  gives  him  a  guerdon 
worthy  of  his  art.  And  the  interpreters  of  the 
Muses  sing  of  Ptolemy,  in  return  for  his  favours. 
Nay,  what  fairer  thing  might  befall  a  wealthy 
man,  than  to  win  a  goodly  renown  among 
mortals  ? 

This  abides  even  by  the  sons  of  Atreus,  but 
all  those  countless  treasures  that  they  won, 
when  they  took  the  mighty  house  of  Priam,  are 
hidden  away  in  the  mist,  whence  there  is  no 
returning. 

Ptolemy  alone  presses  his  own  feet  in  the 
footmarks,  yet  glowing  in  the  dust,  of  his 
fathers  that  were  before  him.  To  his  mother 
dear,  and  his  father  he  hath  stablished  fragrant 
temples  ;  therein  has  he  set  their  images, 
splendid  with  gold  and  ivory,  to  succour  all 
earthly  men.  And  many  fat  thighs  of  kine 
doth  he  burn  on  the  empurpled  altars,  as  the 
months  roll  by,  he  and  his  stately  wife  ;  no 
nobler  lady  did  ever  embrace  a  bridegroom  in 
the  halls,  who  loves,  with  her  whole  heart,  her 
brother,  her  lord.  On  this  wise  was  the  holy 
bridal  of  the  Immortals,  too,  accomplished, 
even  of  the  pair  that  great  Rhea  bore,  the 
rulers  of  Olympus  ;  and  one  bed  for  the 
slumber  of  Zeus  and  of  Hera  doth  Iris  strew, 
with  myrrh-anointed  hands,  the  virgin  Iris. 

Prince  Ptolemy,  farewell,  and  of  thee  will  I 
make  mention,  even  as  of  the  other  demigods  ; 
and  a  word  methinks  I  will  utter  not  to  be 
rejected  of  men  yet  unborn, — excellence,  how- 
beit,  thou  shalt  gain  from  Zeus. 


IDYL    XVIII 

This  epithalamium  may  have  been  written  for  the 
•wedding  of  a  friend  of  the  poet's.  The  idea  is 
said  to  have  been  borrowed  from  an  old  poem  by 
Stesichorus.  The  epithalamium  was  chanted  at 
night  by  a  chorus  of  girls,  outside  the  bridal 
chamber.  Compare  the  conclusion  of  the  hymn  of 
Adonis,  in  the  fifteenth  Idyl. 

IN  Sparta,  once,  to  the  house  of  fair -haired 
Menelaus,  came  maidens  with  the  blooming 
hyacinth  in  their  hair,  and  before  the  new 
painted  chamber  arrayed  their  dance, — twelve 
maidens,  the  first  in  the  city,  the  glory  of 
Laconian  girls, — what  time  the  younger  Atrides 
had  wooed  and  won  Helen,  and  closed  the 
door  of  the  bridal -bower  on  the  beloved  daugh- 
ter of  Tyndarus.  Then  sang  they  all  in  har- 
mony, beating  time  with  woven  paces,  and  the 
house  rang  round  with  the  bridal  song. 

The  Chorus. 

Thus   early  art   thou    sleeping,   dear  bride- 
groom, say  are  thy  limbs  heavy  with  slumber, 
or  art  thou  all  too  fond  of  sleep,  or  hadst  thou 
perchance  drunken   over  well,  ere   thou   didst 
H 


98  THEOCRITUS 

fling  thee  to  thy  rest  ?  Thou  shouldst  have 
slept  betimes,  and  alone,  if  thou  wert  so  fain  of 
sleep  ;  thou  shouldst  have  left  the  maiden  with 
maidens  beside  her  mother  dear,  to  play  till 
deep  in  the  dawn,  for  to-morrow,  and  next  day, 
and  for  all  the  years,  Menelaus,  she  is  thy 
bride. 

O  happy  bridegroom,  some  good  spirit 
sneezed  out  on  thee  a  blessing,  as  thou  wert 
approaching  Sparta  whither  went  the  other 
princes,  that  so  thou  mightst  win  thy  desire ! 
Alone  among  the  demigods  shalt  thou  have 
Zeus  for  father  !  Yea,  and  the  daughter  of 
Zeus  has  come  beneath  one  coverlet  with  thee, 
so  fair  a  lady,  peerless  among  all  Achaean 
women  that  walk  the  earth.  Surely  a  wondrous 
child  would  she  bear  thee,  if  she  bore  one  like 
the  mother ! 

For  lo,  we  maidens  are  all  of  like  age  with 
her,  and  one  course  we  were  wont  to  run, 
anointed  in  manly  fashion,  by  the  baths  of 
Eurotas.  Four  times  sixty  girls  were  we,  the 
maiden  flower  of  the  land,  but  of  us  all  not 
one  was  faultless,  when  matched  with  Helen. 

As  the  rising  Dawn  shows  forth  her  fairer 
face  than  thine,  O  Night,  or  as  the  bright 
Spring,  when  Winter  relaxes  his  hold,  even  so 
amongst  us  still  she  shone,  the  golden  Helen. 
Even  as  the  crops  spring  up,  the  glory  of  the 
rich  plough  land  ; l  or,  as  is  the  cypress  in  the 
garden  ;  or,  in  a  chariot,  a  horse  of  Thessalian 

1  Reading — wielpq.  &re  \aov  dv^dpafJif  K6cr/uoy  dpovpt}. 
See  also  Wordsworth's  note  on  line  26. 


IDYL  XVIII  99 

breed,  even  so  is  rose-red  Helen  the  glory  of 
Lacedaemon.  No  other  in  her  basket  of  wool 
winds  forth  such  goodly  work,  and  none  cuts 
out,  from  between  the  mighty  beams,  a  closer 
warp  than  that  her  shuttle  weaves  in  the  carven 
loom.  Yea,  and  of  a  truth  none  other  smites 
the  lyre,  hymning  Artemis  and  broad-breasted 
Athene,  with  such  skill  as  Helen,  within  whose  ' 
eyes  dwell  all  the  Loves. 

O  fair,  O  gracious  damsel,  even  now  art 
thou  a  wedded  wife  ;  but  we  will  go  forth  right 
early  to  the  course  we  ran,  and  to  the  grassy 
meadows,  to  gather  sweet-breathing  coronals  of 
flowers,  thinking  often  upon  thee,  Helen,  even 
as  youngling  lambs  that  miss  the  teats  of  the 
mother -ewe.  For  thee  first  will  we  twine  a 
wreath  of  lotus  flowers  that  lowly  grow,  and 
hang  it  on  a  shadowy  plane  tree,  for  thee  first 
will  we  take  soft  oil  from  the  silver  phial,  and 
drop  it  beneath  a  shadowy  plane  tree,  and 
letters  will  we  grave  on  the  bark,  in  Dorian 
wise,  so  that  the  wayfarer  may  read : 

WORSHIP   ME,    I   AM   THE   TREE   OF    HELEN. 

Good  night,  thou  bride,  good  night,  thou 
groom  that  hast  won  a  mighty  sire !  May 
Leto,  Leto,  the  nurse  of  noble  offspring,  give 
you  the  blessing  of  children  ;  and  may  Cypris, 
divine  Cypris,  grant  you  equal  love,  to  cherish 
each  the  other ;  and  may  Zeus,  even  Zeus  the 
son  of  Cronos,  give  you  wealth  imperishable, 
to  be  handed  down  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion of  the  princes. 


loo  THEOCRITUS 

Sleep  ye,  breathing  love  and  desire  each 
into  the  other's  breast,  but  forget  not  to  wake 
in  the  dawning,  and  at  dawn  we  too  will  come, 
when  the  earliest  cock  shrills  from  his  perch, 
and  raises  his  feathered  neck. 

Hymen,  0  Hymenae,  rejoice  tJwu  in  this 
bridal. 


IDYL    XIX 

This  little  piece  is  but  doubtfully  ascribed  to  Theocritus. 
The  motif  is  that  of  a  well-known  Anacreontic  Ode. 
The  idyl  has  been  translated  by  Ronsard. 

THE  thievish  Love,  —  a  cruel  bee  once  stung 
him,  as  he  was  rifling  honey  from  the  hives, 
and  pricked  his  finger-tips  all ;  then  he  was  in 
pain,  and  blew  upon  his  hand,  and  leaped,  and 
stamped  the  ground.  And  then  he  showed  his 
hurt  to  Aphrodite,  and  made  much  complaint, 
how  that  the  bee  is  a  tiny  creature,  and  yet 
what  wounds  it  deals  !  And  his  mother  laughed 
out,  and  said,  '  Art  thou  not  even  such  a  crea- 
ture as  the  bees,  for  tiny  art  thou,  but  what 
wounds  thou  dealest ! ' 


IDYL    XX 

A  herdsman,  -who  had  been  contemptuously  rejected  by 
Eunica,  a  girl  of  the  town,  protests  that  he  is 
beautiful,  and  that  Eunica  is  prouder  than  Cybele, 
Selene,  and  Aphrodite,  all  of  -whom  loved  mortal 
herdsmen.  For  grammatical  and  other  reasons, 
some  critics  consider  this  idyl  apocryphal. 

EUNICA  laughed  out  at  me  when  sweetly  I 
would  have  kissed  her,  and  taunting  me,  thus 
she  spoke  :  '  Get  thee  gone  from  me  !  Wouldst 
thou  kiss  me,  wretch  ;  thou — a  neatherd  ?  I 
never  learned  to  kiss  in  country  fashion,  but  to 
press  lips  with  city  gentlefolks.  Never  hope  to 
kiss  my  lovely  mouth,  nay,  not  even  in  a  dream. 
How  thou  dost  look,  what  chatter  is  thine,  how 
countrified  thy  tricks  are,  how  delicate  thy  talk, 
how  easy  thy  tattle  !  And  then  thy  beard — so 
soft !  thy  elegant  hair  !  Why,  thy  lips  are  like 
some  sick  man's,  thy  hands  are  black,  and  thou 
art  of  evil  savour.  Away  with  thee,  lest  thy 
presence  soil  me  !'  These  taunts  she  mouthed, 
and  thrice  spat  in  the  breast  of  her  gown,  and 
stared  at  me  all  over  from  head  to  feet ;  shoot- 
ing out  her  lips,  and  glancing  with  half- shut 
eyes,  writhing  her  beautiful  body,  and  so 


IDYL  XX  103 

sneered,  and  laughed  me  to  scorn.  And  in- 
stantly my  blood  boiled,  and  I  grew  red  under 
the  sting,  as  a  rose  with  dew.  And  she  went 
off  and  left  me,  but  I  bear  angry  pride  deep 
in  my  heart,  that  I,  the  handsome  shepherd, 
should  have  been  mocked  by  a  wretched  light- 
o'-love. 

Shepherds,  tell  me  the  very  truth  ;  am  I  not 
beautiful  ?  Has  some  God  changed  me  sud- 
denly to  another  man  ?  Surely  a  sweet  grace 
ever  blossomed  round  me,  till  this  hour,  like 
ivy  round  a  tree,  and  covered  my  chin,  and 
about  my  temples  fell  my  locks,  like  curling 
parsley-leaves,  and  white  shone  my  forehead 
above  my  dark  eyebrows.  Mine  eyes  were 
brighter  far  than  the  glance  of  the  grey-eyed 
Athene,  my  mouth  than  even  pressed  milk  was 
sweeter,  and  from  my  lips  my  voice  flowed 
sweeter  than  honey  from  the  honeycomb. 
Sweet  too,  is  my  music,  whether  I  make  melody 
on  pipe,  or  discourse  on  the  flute,  or  reed,  or 
flageolet.  And  all  the  mountain-maidens  call 
me  beautiful,  and  they  would  kiss  me,  all  of 
them.  But  the  city  girl  did  not  kiss  me,  but 
ran  past  me,  because  I  am  a  neatherd,  and 
she  never  heard  how  fair  Dionysus  in  the  dells 
doth  drive  the  calves,  and  knows  not  that 
Cypris  was  wild  with  love  for  a  herdsman,  and 
drove  afield  in  the  mountains  of  Phrygia ;  ay, 
and  Adonis  himself,  —  in  the  oakwood  she 
kissed,  in  the  oakwood  she  bewailed  him. 
And  what  was  Endymion  ?  was  he  not  a  neat- 
herd ?  whom  nevertheless  as  he  watched  his 


104  THEOCRITUS 

herds  Selene  saw  and  loved,  and  from  Olympus 
descending  she  came  to  the  Latmian  glade, 
and  lay  in  one  couch  with  the  boy  ;  and  thou, 
Rhea,  dost  weep  for  thy  herdsman. 

And  didst  not  thou,  too,  Son  of  Cronos,  take 
the  shape  of  a  wandering  bird,  and  all  for  a 
cowherd  boy  ? 

But  Eunica  alone  would  not  kiss  the  herds- 
man ;  Eunica,  she  that  is  greater  than  Cybele, 
and  Cypris,  and  Selene  ! 

Well,  Cypris,  never  mayst  thou,  in  city  or 
on  hillside,  kiss  thy  darling,1  and  lonely  all  the 
long  night  mayst  thou  sleep  ! 

1  For  bMa.  Wordsworth  and  Hermann  conjecture 
"Apea.  The  sense  would  be  that  Eunica,  who  thinks 
herself  another  Cypris,  or  Aphrodite  is,  in  turn,  to  be 
rejected  by  her  Ares,  her  soldier-lover,  as  she  has  re- 
jected the  herdsman. 


IDYL    XXI 

After  some  verses  addressed  to  Diophantus,  a  friend 
about  whom  nothing  is  known,  the  poet  describes  the 
toilsome  life  of  two  old  fishermen.  One  of  them  has 
dreamed  of  catching  a  golden  fish,  and  has  sworn, 
in  his  dream,  never  again  to  tempt  the  sea.  The 
other  reminds  him  that  his  oath  is  as  empty  as  his 
vision,  and  that  he  must  angle  for  common  fish,  if 
he  would  not  starve  among  his  golden  dreams.  The 
idyl  is,  unfortunately,  corrupt  beyond  hope  of  cer- 
tain correction. 

'Tis  Poverty  alone,  Diophantus,  that  awakens 
the  arts  ;  Poverty,  the  very  teacher  of  labour. 
Nay,  not  even  sleep  is  permitted,  by  weary 
cares,  to  men  that  live  by  toil,  and  if,  for  a 
little  while,  one  close  his  eyes  *  in  the  night, 
cares  throng  about  him,  and  suddenly  disquiet 
his  slumber. 

Two  fishers,  on  a  time,  two  old  men,  to- 
gether lay  and  slept  ;  they  had  strown  the  dry 
sea-moss  for  a  bed  in  their  wattled  cabin,  and 
there  they  lay  against  the  leafy  wall.  Beside 
them  were  strewn  the  instruments  of  their  toil- 
some hands,  the  fishing- creels,  the  rods  of 
reed,  the  hooks,  the  sails  bedraggled  with  sea- 

1  Reading  eTriyUtycrcrij^t. 


106  THEOCRITUS 

spoil,1  the  lines,  the  weels,  the  lobster  pots 
woven  of  rushes,  the  seines,  two  oars,2  and  an 
old  coble  upon  props.  Beneath  their  heads 
was  a  scanty  matting,  their  clothes,  their 
sailor's  caps.  Here  was  all  their  toil,  here  all 
their  wealth.  The  threshold  had  never  a  door, 
nor  a  watch-dog  ;  3  all  things,  all,  to  them 
seemed  superfluity,  for  Poverty  was  their  sen- 
tinel. They  had  no  neighbour  by  them,  but 
ever  against  their  narrow  cabin  gently  floated 
up  the  sea. 

The  chariot  of  the  moon  had  not  yet  reached 
the  mid-point  of  her  course,  but  their  familiar 
toil  awakened  the  fishermen  ;  from  their  eye- 
lids they  cast  out  slumber,  and  roused  their 
souls  with  speech.4 

Asphalion.  They  lie  all,  my  friend,  who  say 
that  the  nights  wane  short  in  summer,  when 
Zeus  brings  the  long  days.  Already  have  I 
seen  ten  thousand  dreams,  and  the  dawn  is  not 
yet.  Am  I  wrong,  what  ails  them,  the  nights 
are  surely  long  ? 

The  Friend.  Asphalion,  thou  blamest  the 
beautiful  summer  !  It  is  not  that  the  season 
hath  wilfully  passed  his  natural  course,  but 
care,  breaking  thy  sleep,  makes  night  seem 
long  to  thee. 

Asphalion.  Didst  ever  learn  to  interpret 
dreams  ?  for  good  dreams  have  I  beheld.  I 


1  Reading  TO.  <J>VKIO&TO.  re  \ai(f>-r). 


2  KWTTCL 


. 
3  oi)86s  5'  ovxl  6tipav  elx',  and  in  the  next  line  a  yap 


.  <r<as 


IDYL  XXI  107 

would  not  have  thee  to  go  without  thy  share  in 
my  vision  ;  even  as  we  go  shares  in  the  fish  we 
catch,  so  share  all  my  dreams  !  Sure,  thou  art 
not  to  be  surpassed  in  wisdom  ;  and  he  is  the 
best  interpreter  of  dreams  that  hath  wisdom  for 
his  teacher.  Moreover,  we  have  time  to  idle 
in,  for  what  could  a  man  find  to  do,  lying  on  a 
leafy  bed  beside  the  wave  and  slumbering  not  ? 
Nay,  the  ass  is  among  the  thorns,  the  lantern 
in  the  town  hall,  for,  they  say,  it  is  always 
sleepless.1 

The  Friend.  Tell  me,  then,  the  vision  of  the 
night  ;  nay,  tell  all  to  thy  friend. 

Asphalion.  As  I  was  sleeping  late,  amid  the 
labours  of  the  salt  sea  (and  truly  not  too  full- 
fed,  for  we  supped  early  if  thou  dost  remember, 
and  did  not  overtax  our  bellies),  I  saw  myself 
busy  on  a  rock,  and  there  I  sat  and  watched 
the  fishes,  and  kept  spinning  the  bait  with  the 
rods.  And  one  of  the  fish  nibbled,  a  fat  one, 
for  in  sleep  dogs  dream  of  bread,  and  of  fish 
dream  I.  Well,  he  was  tightly  hooked,  and 
the  blood  was  running,  and  the  rod  I  grasped 
was  bent  with  his  struggle.  So  with  both 
hands  I  strained,  and  had  a  sore  tussle  for  the 
monster.  How  was  I  ever  to  land  so  big  a 

i  Reading,  with  Fritzsche — 

d\X'  8vos  ev  pafj-tHp,  rb  re  \v~xyiov  ev  irpvra.vei(f 

<f>a.vrl  yap  dypvirviav  r6d'  ^xelv- 

The  lines  seem  to  contain  two  popular  saws,  of  which  it 
is  difficult  to  guess  the  meaning.  The  first  saw  appears 
to  express  helplessness  ;  the  second,  to  hint  that  such 
comforts  as  lamps  lit  all  night  long  exist  in  towns,  but 
are  out  of  the  reach  of  poor  fishermen. 


io8  THEOCRITUS 

fish  with  hooks  all  too  slim  ?  Then  just  to 
remind  him  he  was  hooked,  I  gently  pricked 
him,1  pricked,  and  slackened,  and,  as  he  did 
not  run,  I  took  in  line.  My  toil  was  ended 
with  the  sight  of  my  prize  ;  I  drew  up  a  golden 
fish,  lo  you,  a  fish  all  plated  thick  with  gold  ! 
Then  fear  took  hold  of  me,  lest  he  might  be 
some  fish  beloved  of  Posidon,  or  perchance 
some  jewel  of  the  sea-grey  Amphitrite.  Gently 
I  unhooked  him,  lest  ever  the  hooks  should 
retain  some  of  the  gold  of  his  mouth.  Then  I 
dragged  him  on  shore  with  the  ropes,2  and 
swore  that  never  again  would  I  set  foot  on 
sea,  but  abide  on  land,  and  lord  it  over  the 
gold. 

This  was  even  what  wakened  me,  but,  for 

1  Reading  ijpe/u,'  ivvi-a  Kal  Vi5£as  exc£Xa£a.     Asphalion 
first  hooked   his   fish,    which  ran   gamely,   and   nearly 
doubled  up  the  rod.      Then  the  fish  sulked,  and  the 
angler  half  despaired  of  landing  him.      To  stir  the  sullen 
fish,  he  '  reminded  him  of  his  wound,'  probably,  as  we 
do  now,  by  keeping  a  tight  line,  and  tapping  the  butt  of 
the  rod.     Then  he  slackened,  giving  the  fish  line  in  case 
of  a  sudden  rush  ;  but  as  there  was  no  such  rush,  he 
took  in  line,  or  perhaps  only  showed  his  fish  the  butt 
(for  it  is  not  probable  that  Asphalion  had  a  reel),  and 
so  landed  him.     The   Mediterranean  fishers  generally 
toss  the  fish  to  land  with  no  display  of  science,   but 
Asphalion' s  imaginary  capture  was  a  monster. 

2  It  is  difficult  to  understand  this  proceeding.      Per- 
haps Asphalion  had  some  small  net  fastened  with  strings 
to  his  boat,  in  which  he  towed  fish  to  shore,  that  the 
contact  with  the  water  might  keep  them  fresher  than 
they  were  likely  to  be  in  the  bottom  of  the  coble.      On 
the  other  hand,    Asphalion   was   fishing  from  a  rock. 
His  dream  may  have  been  confused. 


IDYL  XXI  109 

the  rest,  set  thy  mind  to  it,  my  friend,  for  I  am 
in  dismay  about  the  oath  I  swore. 

The  Friend.  Nay,  never  fear,  thou  art  no 
more  sworn  than  thou  hast  found  the  golden 
fish  of  thy  vision  ;  dreams  are  but  lies.  But  if 
thou  wilt  search  these  waters,  wide  awake,  and 
not  asleep,  there  is  some  hope  in  thy  slumbers  ; 
seek  the  fish  of  flesh,  lest  thou  die  of  famine 
with  all  thy  dreams  of  gold  ! 


IDYL    XXII 

THE   DIOSCURI 

This  is  a  hymn,  in  the  Homeric  manner,  to  Castor  and 
Polydeuces.  Compare  the  life  and  truth  of  the 
descriptions  of  nature,  and  of  the  boxing-match, 
•with  the  frigid  manner  of  Apollonius  Rhodius. — 
Argonautica,  n.  i.  seq. 

WE  hymn  the  children  twain  of  Leda,  and  of 
aegis -bearing  Zeus, — Castor,  and  Pollux,  the 
boxer  dread,  when  he  hath  harnessed  his 
knuckles  in  thongs  of  ox-hide.  Twice  hymn 
we,  and  thrice  the  stalwart  sons  of  the  daughter 
of  Thestias,  the  two  brethren  of  Lacedaemon. 
Succourers  are  they  of  men  in  the  very  thick  of 
peril,  and  of  horses  maddened  in  the  bloody 
press  of  battle,  and  of  ships  that,  defying  the 
stars  that  set  and  rise  in  heaven,  have  en- 
countered the  perilous  breath  of  storms.  The 
winds  raise  huge  billows  about  their  stern,  yea, 
or  from  the  prow,  or  even  as  each  wind  wills, 
and  cast  them  into  the  hold  of  the  ship,  and 
shatter  both  bulwarks,  while  with  the  sail  hangs 
all  the  gear  confused  and  broken,  and  the 
storm-rain  falls  from  heaven  as  night  creeps  on, 


IDYL  XXII  in 

and  the  wide  sea  rings,  being  lashed  by  the 
gusts,  and  by  showers  of  iron  hail. 

Yet  even  so  do  ye  draw  forth  the  ships  from 
the  abyss,  with  their  sailors  that  looked  im- 
mediately to  die  ;  and  instantly  the  winds  are 
still,  and  there  is  an  oily  calm  along  the  sea, 
and  the  clouds  flee  apart,  this  way  and  that, 
also  the  Bears  appear,  and  in  the  midst,  dimly 
seen,  the  Asses'  manger^  declaring  that  all  is 
smooth  for  sailing. 

O  ye  twain  that  aid  all  mortals,  O  beloved 
pair,  ye  knights,  ye  harpers,  ye  wrestlers,  ye 
minstrels,  of  Castor,  or  of  Polydeuces  first  shall 
I  begin  to  sing  ?  Of  both  of  you  will  I  make 
my  hymn,  but  first  will  I  sing  of  Polydeuces. 

Even  already  had  Argo  fled  forth  from  the 
Clashing  Rocks,  and  the  dread  jaws  of  snowy 
Pontus,  and  was  come  to  the  land  of  the 
Bebryces,  with  her  crew,  dear  children  of  the 
gods.  There  all  the  heroes  disembarked,  down 
one  ladder,  from  both  sides  of  the  ship  of 
lason.  When  they  had  landed  on  the  deep 
seashore  and  a  sea -bank  sheltered  from  the 
wind,  they  strewed  their  beds,  and  their  hands 
were  busy  with  firewood.1 

Then  Castor  of  the  swift  steeds,  and  swart 
Polydeuces,  these  twain  went  wandering  alone, 
apart  from  their  fellows,  and  marvelling  at 
all  the  various  wildwood  on  the  mountain. 
Beneath  a  smooth  cliff  they  found  an  ever- 
flowing  spring  filled  with  the  purest  water,  and 

1  TTvpela.  appear  to  have  been  '  fire  sticks, '  by  nib- 
bing which  together  the  heroes  struck  a  light. 


112  THEOCRITUS 

the  pebbles  below  shone  like  crystal  or  silver 
from  the  deep.  Tall  fir  trees  grew  thereby, 
and  white  poplars,  and  planes,  and  cypresses 
with  their  lofty  tufts  of  leaves,  and  there 
bloomed  all  fragrant  flowers  that  fill  the 
meadows  when  early  summer  is  waning — dear 
work-steads  of  the  hairy  bees.  But  there  a 
monstrous  man  was  sitting  in  the  sun,  terrible 
of  aspect ;  the  bruisers'  hard  fists  had  crushed 
his  ears,  and  his  mighty  breast  and  his  broad 
back  were  domed  with  iron  flesh,  like  some 
huge  statue  of  hammered  iron.  The  muscles 
on  his  brawny  arms,  close  by  the  shoulder, 
stood  out  like  rounded  rocks,  that  the  winter 
torrent  has  rolled,  and  worn  smooth,  in  the 
great  swirling  stream,  but  about  his  back  and 
neck  was  draped  a  lion's  skin,  hung  by  the 
claws.  Him  first  accosted  the  champion, 
Polydeuces. 

Polydeuces.  Good  luck  to  thee,  stranger, 
whosoe'er  thou  art !  What  men  are  they  that 
possess  this  land  ? 

Amycus.  What  sort  of  luck,  when  I  see  men 
that  I  never  saw  before  ? 

Polydeuces.  Fear  not  !  Be  sure  that  those 
thou  look'st  on  are  neither  evil,  nor  the  children 
of  evil  men. 

Amycus.  No  fear  have  I,  and  it  is  not  for 
thee  to  teach  me  that  lesson. 

Polydeuces.  Art  thou  a  savage,  resenting  all 
address,  or  some  vainglorious  man  ? 

Amycus.  I  am  that  thou  see'st,  and  on  thy 
land,  at  least,  I  trespass  not. 


IDYL  XXII  113 

Poly  deuces.  Come,  and  with  kindly  gifts 
return  homeward  again  ! 

Amyc^(s.  Gift  me  no  gifts,  none  such  have  I 
ready  for  thee. 

Poly  deuces.  Nay,  wilt  thou  not  even  grant 
us  leave  to  taste  this  spring? 

Amycus.  That  shalt  thou  learn  when  thirst 
has  parched  thy  shrivelled  lips. 

Polydeuces.  Will  silver  buy  the  boon,  or 
with  what  price,  prithee,  may  we  gain  thy 
leave  ? 

Amyctts.  Put  up  thy  hands  and  stand  in 
single  combat,  man  to  man. 

Polydeuces.  A  boxing. match,  or  is  kicking 
fair,  when  we  meet  eye  to  eye  ? 

Amycus.  Do  thy  best  with  thy  fists  and 
spare  not  thy  skill ! 

Polydeuces.  And  who  is  the  man  on  whom  I 
am  to  lay  my  hands  and  gloves  ? 

Amycus.  Thou  see'st  him  close  enough,  the 
boxer  will  not  prove  a  maiden  ! 

Polydeuces.  And  is  the  prize  ready,  for  which 
we  two  must  fight  ? 

Amycus.  Thy  man  shall  I  be  called 
(shouldst  thou  win),  or  thou  mine,  if  I  be 
victor. 

Polydeuces.  On  such  terms  fight  the  red- 
crested  birds  of  the  game. 

Amycus.  Well,  be  we  like  birds  or  lions,  we 
shall  fight  for  no  other  stake. 

So  Amycus  spoke,  and  seized  and  blew  his 
hollow  shell,  and  speedily  the  long-haired 
Bebryces  gathered  beneath  the  shadowy  planes, 
I 


114  THEOCRITUS 

at  the  blowing  of  the  shell.  And  in  likewise 
did  Castor,  eminent  in  war,  go  forth  and  sum- 
mon all  the  heroes  from  the  Magnesian  ship. 
And  the  champions,  when  they  had  strength- 
ened their  fists  with  the  stout  ox-skin  gloves, 
and  bound  long  leathern  thongs  about  their 
arms,  stepped  into  the  ring,  breathing  slaughter 
against  each  other.  Then  had  they  much  ado, 
in  that  assault, — which  should  have  the  sun's 
light  at  his  back.  But  by  thy  skill,  Polydeuces, 
thou  didst  outwit  the  giant,  and  the  sun's  rays 
fell  full  on  the  face  of  Amycus.  Then  came  he 
eagerly  on  in  great  wrath  and  heat,  making 
play  with  his  fists,  but  the  son  of  Tyndarus 
smote  him  on  the  chin  as  he  charged,  madden- 
ing him  even  more,  and  the  giant  confused  the 
fighting,  laying  on  with  all  his  weight,  and 
going  in  with  his  head  down.  The  Bebryces 
cheered  their  man,  and  on  the  other  side  the 
heroes  still  encouraged  stout  Polydeuces,  for 
they  feared  lest  the  giant's  weight,  a  match  for 
Tityus,  might  crush  their  champion  in  the 
narrow  lists.  But  the  son  of  Zeus  stood  to 
him,  shifting  his  ground  again  and  again,  and 
kept  smiting  him,  right  and  left,  and  somewhat 
checked  the  rush  of  the  son  of  Posidon,  for  all 
his  monstrous  strength.  Then  he  stood  reeling 
like  a  drunken  man  under  the  blows,  and  spat 
out  the  red  blood,  while  all  the  heroes  together 
raised  a  cheer,  as  they  marked  the  woful  bruises 
about  his  mouth  and  jaws,  and  how,  as  his  face 
swelled  up,  his  eyes  were  half  closed.  Next, 
the  prince  teased  him,  feinting  on  every  side, 


IDYL  XXII  115 

but  seeing  now  that  the  giant  was  all  abroad, 
he  planted  his  fist  just  above  the  middle  of  the 
nose,  beneath  the  eyebrows,  and  skinned  all  the 
brow  to  the  bone.  Thus  smitten,  Amycus  lay 
stretched  on  his  back,  among  the  flowers  and 
grasses.  There  was  fierce  fighting  when  he 
arose  again,  and  they  bruised  each  other  well, 
laying  on  with  the  hard  weighted  gloves  ;  but 
the  champion  of  the  Bebryces  was  always  play- 
ing on  the  chest,  and  outside  the  neck,  while 
unconquered  Polydeuces  kept  smashing  his 
foeman's  face  with  ugly  blows.  The  giant's 
flesh  was  melting  away  in  his  sweat,  till  from  a 
huge  mass  he  soon  became  small  enough,  but 
the  limbs  of  the  other  waxed  always  stronger, 
and  his  colour  better,  as  he  warmed  to  his 
work. 

How  then,  at  last,  did  the  son  of  Zeus  lay 
low  the  glutton  ?  say  goddess,  for  thou  knowest, 
but  I,  who  am  but  the  interpreter  of  others, 
will  speak  all  that  thou  wilt,  and  in  such  wise 
as  pleases  thee. 

Now  behold  the  giant  was  keen  to  do  some 
great  feat,  so  with  his  left  hand  he  grasped  the 
left  of  Polydeuces,  stooping  slantwise  from  his 
onset,  while  with  his  other  hand  he  made  his 
effort,  and  drove  a  huge  fist  up  from  his  right 
haunch.  Had  his  blow  come  home,  he  would 
have  harmed  the  King  of  Amyclae,  but  he 
slipped  his  head  out  of  the  way,  and  then  with 
his  strong  hand  struck  Amycus  on  the  left 
temple,  putting  his  shoulder  into  the  blow. 
Quick  gushed  the  black  blood  from  the  gaping 


Ii6  THEOCRITUS 

temple,  while  Polydeuces  smote  the  giant's 
mouth  with  his  left,  and  the  close -set  teeth 
rattled.  And  still  he  punished  his  face  with 
quick-repeated  blows,  till  the  cheeks  were  fairly 
pounded.  Then  Amycus  lay  stretched  all  on 
the  ground,  fainting,  and  held  out  both  his 
hands,  to  show  that  he  declined  the  fight,  for 
he  was  near  to  death. 

There  then,  despite  thy  victory,  didst  thou 
work  him  no  insensate  wrong,  O  boxer  Poly- 
deuces,  but  to  thee  he  swore  a  mighty  oath, 
calling  his  sire  Posidon  from  the  deep,  that 
assuredly  never  again  would  he  be  violent  to 
strangers. 

Thee  have  I  hymned,  my  prince  ;  but  thee 
now,  Castor,  will  I  sing,  O  son  of  Tyndarus, 
O  lord  of  the  swift  steeds,  O  wielder  of 
the  spear,  thou  that  wearest  the  corselet  of 
bronze. 

Now  these  twain,  the  sons  of  Zeus,  had 
seized  and  were  bearing  away  the  two 
daughters  of  Lycippus,  and  eagerly  in  sooth 
these  two  other  brethren  were  pursuing  them, 
the  sons  of  Aphareus,  even  they  that  should 
soon  have  been  the  bridegrooms,  —  Lynceus 
and  mighty  Idas.  But  when  they  were  come 
to  the  tomb  of  the  dead  Aphareus,  then  forth 
from  their  chariots  they  all  sprang  together, 
and  set  upon  each  other,  under  the  weight  of 
their  spears  and  hollow  shields.  But  Lynceus 
again  spake,  and  shouted  loud  from  under  his 
vizor  : — 

'  Sirs,  wherefore  desire  ye  battle,  and  how 


IDYL  XXII  117 

are  ye  thus  violent  to  win  the  brides  of  others 
with  naked  swords  in  your  hands.  To  us,  be- 
hold, did  Leucippus  betroth  these  his  daughters 
long  before  ;  to  us  this  bridal  is  by  oath  con- 
firmed. And  ye  did  not  well,  in  that  to  win 
the  wives  of  others  ye  perverted  him  with  gifts 
of  oxen,  and  mules,  and  other  wealth,  and  so 
won  wedlock  by  bribes.  Lo  many  a  time,  in 
face  of  both  of  you,  I  have  spoken  thus,  I  that 
am  not  a  man  of  many  words,  saying, —  "  Not 
thus,  dear  friends,  does  it  become  heroes  to 
woo  their  wives,  wives  that  already  have  bride- 
grooms betrothed.  Lo  Sparta  is  wide,  and 
wide  is  Elis,  a  land  of  chariots  and  horses, 
and  Arcadia  rich  in  sheep,  and  there  are  the 
citadels  of  the  Achaeans,  and  Messenia,  and 
Argos,  and  all  the  sea  -  coast  of  Sisyphus. 
There  be  maidens  by  their  parents  nurtured, 
maidens  countless,  that  lack  not  aught  in 
wisdom  or  in  comeliness.  Of  these  ye  may 
easily  win  such  as  ye  will,  for  many  are  willing 
to  be  the  fathers-in-law  of  noble  youths,  and  ye 
are  the  very  choice  of  heroes  all,  as  your 
fathers  were,  and  all  your  father's  kin,  and  all 
your  blood  from  of  old.  But,  friends,  let  this 
our  bridal  find  its  due  conclusion,  and  for  you 
let  all  of  us  seek  out  another  marriage." 

'  Many  such  words  I  would  speak,  but  the 
wind's  breath  bare  them  away  to  the  wet  wave 
of  the  sea,  and  no  favour  followed  with  my 
words.  For  ye  twain  are  hard  and  ruthless, — 
nay,  but  even  now  do  ye  listen,  for  ye  are  our 
cousins,  and  kin  by  the  father's  side.  But  if 


Ii8  THEOCRITUS 

your  heart  yet  lusts  for  war,  and  with  blood  we 
must  break  up  the  kindred  strife,  and  end  the 
feud,1  then  Idas  and  his  cousin,  mighty  Poly- 
deuces,  shall  hold  their  hands  and  abstain  from 
battle,  but  let  us  twain,  Castor  and  I,  the 
younger  born,  try  the  ordeal  of  war  !  Let  us 
not  leave  the  heaviest  of  grief  to  our  fathers  ! 
Enough  is  one  slain  man  from  a  house,  but  the 
others  will  make  festival  for  all  their  friends, 
and  will  be  bridegrooms,  not  slain  men,  and 
will  wed  these  maidens.  Lo,  it  is  fitting  with 
light  loss  to  end  a  great  dispute.' 

So  he  spake,  and  these  words  the  gods  were 
not  to  make  vain.  For  the  elder  pair  laid 
down  their  harness  from  their  shoulders  on  the 
ground,  but  Lynceus  stepped  into  the  midst, 
swaying  his  mighty  spear  beneath  the  outer 
rim  of  his  shield,  and  even  so  did  Castor  sway 
his  spear-points,  and  the  plumes  were  nodding 
above  the  crests  of  each.  With  the  sharp 
spears  long  they  laboured  and  tilted  at  each 
other,  if  perchance  they  might  anywhere  spy  a 
part  of  the  flesh  unarmed.  But  ere  either  was 
wounded  the  spear- points  were  broken,  fast 
stuck  in  the  linden  shields.  Then  both  drew 
their  swords  from  the  sheaths,  and  again 
devised  each  the  other's  slaying,  and  there  was 
no  truce  in  the  fight.  Many  a  time  did  Castor 
smite  on  broad  shield  and  horse-hair  crest,  and 
many  a  time  the  keen-sighted  Lynceus  smote 
upon  his  shield,  and  his  blade  just  shore  the 

1  Or  ?7xea  Aowrai,  '  wash  the  spears,'  as  in  the  Zulu 
idiom. 


IDYL  XXII  119 

scarlet  plume.  Then,  as  he  aimed  the  sharp 
sword  at  the  left  knee,  Castor  drew  back  with 
his  left  foot,  and  hacked  the  ringers  off  the 
hand  of  Lynceus.  Then  he  being  smitten  cast 
away  his  sword,  and  turned  swiftly  to  flee  to 
the  tomb  of  his  father,  where  mighty  Idas  lay, 
and  watched  this  strife  of  kinsmen.  But  the 
son  of  Tyndarus  sped  after  him,  and  drove  the 
broad  sword  through  bowels  and  navel,  and 
instantly  the  bronze  cleft  all  in  twain,  and  Lyn- 
ceus bowed,  and  on  his  face  he  lay  fallen  on 
the  ground,  and  forthwith  heavy  sleep  rushed 
down  upon  his  eyelids. 

Nay,  nor  that  other  of  her  children  did 
Laocoosa  see,  by  the  hearth  of  his  fathers,  after 
he  had  fulfilled  a  happy  marriage.  For  lo, 
Messenian  Idas  did  swiftly  break  away  the 
standing  stone  from  the  tomb  of  his  father 
Aphareus,  and  now  he  would  have  smitten  the 
slayer  of  his  brother,  but  Zeus  defended  him 
and  drave  the  polished  stone  from  the  hands  of 
Idas,  and  utterly  consumed  him  with  a  flaming 
thunderbolt. 

Thus  it  is  no  light  labour  to  war  with  the 
sons  of  Tyndarus,  for  a  mighty  pair  are  they, 
and  mighty  is  he  that  begat  them. 

Farewell,  ye  children  of  Leda,  and  all  goodly 
renown  send  ye  ever  to  our  singing.  Dear  are 
all  minstrels  to  the  sons  of  Tyndarus,  and  to 
Helen,  and  to  the  other  heroes  that  sacked 
Troy  in  aid  of  Menelaus. 

For  you,  O  princes,  the  bard  of  Chios 
wrought  renown,  when  he  sang  the  city  of 


120  THEOCRITUS 

Priam,  and  the  ships  of  the  Achaeans,  and  the 
Ilian  war,  and  Achilles,  a  tower  of  battle. 
And  to  you,  in  my  turn,  the  charms  of  the 
clear-voiced  Muses,  even  all  that  they  can  give, 
and  all  that  my  house  has  in  store,  these  do  I 
bring.  The  fairest  meed  of  the  gods  is  song. 


IDYL    XXIII 

THE  VENGEANCE  OF  LOVE 

A  lover  ha>igs  himself  at  the  gate  of  his  obdurate  darling 
who,  in  turn,  is  slain  by  a  statue  of  Love. 

This  poem  is  not  attributed  with  much  certainty  to 
Theocritus,  and  is  found  in  but  a  small  proportion 
of  manuscripts. 

A  LOVE-SICK,  youth  pined  for  an  unkind  love, 
beautiful  in  form,  but  fair  no  more  in  mood. 
The  beloved  hated  the  lover,  and  had  for  him 
no  gentleness  at  all,  and  knew  not  Love,  how 
mighty  a  God  is  he,  and  what  a  bow  his  hands 
do  wield,  and  what  bitter  arrows  he  dealeth  at 
the  young.  Yea,  in  all  things  ever,  in  speech 
and  in  all  approaches,  was  the  beloved  unyield- 
ing. Never  was  there  any  assuagement  of 
Love's  fires,  never  was  there  a  smile  of  the 
lips,  nor  a  bright  glance  of  the  eyes,  never  a 
blushing  cheek,  nor  a  word,  nor  a  kiss  that 
lightens  the  burden  of  desire.  Nay,  as  a 
beast  of  the  wild  wood  hath  the  hunters  in 
watchful  dread,  even  so  did  the  beloved  in  all 
things  regard  the  man,  with  angered  lips,  and 
eyes  that  had  the  dreadful  glance  of  fate,  and 


122  THEOCRITUS 

the  whole  face  was  answerable  to  this  wrath, 
the  colour  fled  from  it,  sicklied  o'er  with  wrath- 
ful pride.  Yet  even  thus  was  the  loved  one 
beautiful,  and  the  lover  was  the  more  moved 
by  this  haughtiness.  At  length  he  could  no 
more  endure  so  fierce  a  flame  of  the  Cytherean, 
but  drew  near  and  wept  by  the  hateful  dwelling, 
and  kissed  the  lintel  of  the  door,  and  thus  he 
lifted  up  his  voice  : 

'  O  cruel  child,  and  hateful,  thou  nursling 
of  some  fierce  lioness,  O  child  all  of  stone, 
unworthy  of  love  ;  I  have  come  with  these  my 
latest  gifts  to  thee,  even  this  halter  of  mine  ; 
for,  child,  I  would  no  longer  anger  thee  and 
work  thee  pain.  Nay,  I  am  going  where  thou 
hast  condemned  me  to  fare,  where,  as  men 
say,  is  the  path,  and  there  the  common  remedy 
of  lovers,  the  River  of  Forgetfulness.  Nay, 
but  were  I  to  take  and  drain  with  my  lips  all 
the  waters  thereof,  not  even  so  shall  I  quench 
my  yearning  desire.  And  now  I  bid  my  fare- 
well to  these  gates  of  thine. 

'  Behold  I  know  the  thing  that  is  to  be. 

'  Yea,  the  rose  is  beautiful,  and  Time  he 
withers  it ;  and  fair  is  the  violet  in  spring,  and 
swiftly  it  waxes  old  ;  white  is  the  lily,  it  fadeth 
when  it  falleth  ;  and  snow  is  white,  and  melteth 
after  it  hath  been  frozen.  And  the  beauty 
of  youth  is  fair,  but  lives  only  for  a  little 
season. 

'  That  time  will  come  when  thou  too  shalt 
love,  when  thy  heart  shall  burn,  and  thou  shalt 
weep  salt  tears. 


IDYL  XXI If  123 

'  But,  child,  do  me  even  this  last  favour ; 
when  thou  comest  forth,  and  see'st  me  hanging 
in  thy  gateway, — pass  me  not  careless  by,  thy 
hapless  lover,  but  stand,  and  weep  a  little 
while  ;  and  when  thou  hast  made  this  libation 
of  thy  tears,  then  loose  me  from  the  rope,  and 
cast  over  me  some  garment  from  thine  own 
limbs,  and  so  cover  me  from  sight ;  but  first 
kiss  me  for  that  latest  time  of  all,  and  grant 
the  dead  this  grace  of  thy  lips. 

'  Fear  me  not,  I  cannot  live  again,  no,  not 
though  thou  shouldst  be  reconciled  to  me,  and 
kiss  me.  A  tomb  for  me  do  thou  hollow,  to 
be  the  hiding-place  of  my  love,  and  if  thou 
departest,  cry  thrice  above  me, — 

O  friend,  thou  liest  low  ! 
And  if  thou  wilt,  add  this  also, — 

A  /as,  my  true  friend  is  dead ! 

'And  this  legend  do  thou  write,  that  I  will 
scratch  on  thy  walls, — 

This   man   Love   slew  !       Wayfarer,  pass  not 

heedless  by, 
But  stand,  and  say,  "  he  had  a  cruel  darling"  ' 

Therewith  he  seized  a  stone,  and  laid  it 
against  the  wall,  as  high  as  the  middle  of  the 
doorposts,  a  dreadful  stone,  and  from  the 
lintel  he  fastened  the  slender  halter,  and  cast 
the  noose  about  his  neck,  and  kicked  away  the 
support  from  under  his  foot,  and  there  was  he 
hanged  dead. 


124  THEOCRITUS 

But  the  beloved  opened  the  door,  and  saw 
the  dead  man  hanging  there  in  the  court,  un- 
moved of  heart,  and  tearless  for  the  strange, 
woful  death ;  but  on  the  dead  man  were  all 
the  garments  of  youth  defiled.  Then  forth 
went  the  beloved  to  the  contests  of  the 
wrestlers,  and  there  was  heart-set  on  the  de- 
lightful bathing -places,  and  even  thereby  en- 
countered the  very  God  dishonoured,  for  Love 
stood  on  a  pedestal  of  stone  above  the  waters.1 
And  lo,  the  statue  leaped,  and  slew  that  cruel 
one,  and  the  water  was  red  with  blood,  but 
the  voice  of  the  slain  kept  floating  to  the  brim. 

Rejoice,  ye  lovers,  for  he  that  hated  is  slain. 
Love,  all  ye  beloved,  for  the  God  knotveth  hou< 
to  deal  righteous  judgment. 

1  In  line  57  for  rrj\e  read  Wordsworth's  conjecture 
rfjSe  =  evravOa. 


IDYL    XXIV 

THE  INFANT  HERACLES 

This  poem  describes  the  earliest  feat  of  Heracles,  the 
slaying  of  the  snakes  sent  against  him  by  Hera,  and 
gives  an  account  of  the  hero' s  training.  The 
vivacity  and  tenderness  of  the  pictures  of  domestic 
life,  and  the  minute  knowledge  of  expiatory  cere- 
monies seem  to  stamp  this  idyl  as  the  work  of  Theo- 
critus, As  the  following  poem  also  deals  with 
an  adventure  of  Heracles,  it  seems  not  impossible 
•that  Theocritus  wrote,  or  contemplated  writing,  a 
Heraclean  epic,  in  a  series  of  idyls. 

WHEN  Heracles  was  but  ten  months  old,  the 
lady  of  Midea,  even  Alcmena,  took  him,  on  a 
time,  and  Iphicles  his  brother,  younger  by  one 
night,  and  gave  them  both  their  bath,  and  their 
fill  of  milk,  then  laid  them  down  in  the  buckler 
of  bronze,  that  goodly  piece  whereof  Amphi- 
tryon had  strippen  the  fallen  Pterelaus.  And 
then  the  lady  stroked  her  children's  heads,  and 
spoke,  saying  : — 

'  Sleep,  my  little  ones,  a  light  delicious 
sleep  ;  sleep,  soul  of  mine,  two  brothers,  babes 
unharmed  ;  blessed  be  your  sleep,  and  blessed 
may  ye  come  to  the  dawn.' 


126  THEOCRITUS 

So  speaking  she  rocked  the  huge  shield,  and 
in  a  moment  sleep  laid  hold  on  them. 

But  when  the  Bear  at  midnight  wheels  west- 
ward over  against  Orion  that  shows  his  mighty 
shoulder,  even  then  did  crafty  Hera  send  forth 
two  monstrous  things,  two  snakes  bristling  up 
their  coils  of  azure  ;  against  the  broad  thres- 
hold, where  are  the  hollow  pillars  of  the  house- 
door  she  urged  them  ;  with  intent  that  they 
should  devour  the  young  child  Heracles. 
Then  these  twain  crawled  forth,  writhing  their 
ravenous  bellies  along  the  ground,  and  still 
from  their  eyes  a  baleful  fire  was  shining  as 
they  came,  and  they  spat  out  their  deadly 
venom.  But  when  with  their  flickering  tongues 
they  were  drawing  near  the  children,  then 
Alcmena's  dear  babes  wakened,  by  the  will  of 
Zeus  that  knows  all  things,  and  there  was  a 
bright  light  in  the  chamber.  Then  truly  one 
child,  even  Iphicles,  screamed  out  straightway, 
when  he  beheld  the  hideous  monsters  above 
the  hollow  shield,  and  saw  their  pitiless  fangs, 
and  he  kicked  off  the  woollen  coverlet  with  his 
feet,  in  his  eagerness  to  flee.  But  Heracles 
set  his  force  against  them,  and  grasped  them 
with  his  hands,  binding  them  both  in  a  griev- 
ous bond,  having  got  them  by  the  throat, 
wherein  lies  the  evil  venom  of  baleful  snakes, 
the  venom  detested  even  by  the  gods.  Then 
the  serpents,  in  their  turn,  wound  with  their 
coils  about  the  young  child,  the  child  unweaned, 
that  wept  never  in  his  nursling  days  ;  but 
again  they  relaxed  their  spines  in  stress  of 


IDYL  XXIV  127 

pain,  and  strove  to  find  some  issue  from  the 
grasp  of  iron. 

Now  Alcmena  heard  the  cry,  and  wakened 
first,— 

'  Arise,  Amphitryon,  for  numbing  fear  lays 
hold  of  me  :  arise,  nor  stay  to  put  shoon  be- 
neath thy  feet !  Hearest  thou  not  how  loud 
the  younger  child  is  wailing  ?  Mark'st  thou 
not  that  though  it  is  the  depth  of  the  night, 
the  walls  are  all  plain  to  see  as  in  the  clear 
dawn  ?  l  There  is  some  strange  thing  I  trow 
within  the  house,  there  is,  my  dearest  lord  ! ' 

Thus  she  spake,  and  at  his  wife's  bidding  he 
stepped  down  out  of  his  bed,  and  made  for  his 
richly  dight  sword  that  he  kept  always  hanging 
on  its  pin  above  his  bed  of  cedar.  Verily  he 
was  reaching  out  for  his  new-woven  belt,  lifting 
with  the  other  hand  the  mighty  sheath,  a  work 
of  lotus  wood,  when  lo,  the  wide  chamber  was 
filled  again  with  night.  Then  he  cried  aloud 
on  his  thralls,  who  were  drawing  the  deep 
breath  of  sleep, — 

'  Lights  !  Bring  lights  as  quick  as  may  be 
from  the  hearth,  my  thralls,  and  thrust  back 
the  strong  bolts  of  the  doors.  Arise,  ye  serv- 
ing-men, stout  of  heart,  'tis  the  master  calls.' 

Then  quick  the  serving-men  came  speeding 
with  torches  burning,  and  the  house  waxed  full 

1  Odyssey,  xix.  36  seq.  (Reading  fiirep  not  &rep. ) 
'  Father,  surely  a  great  marvel  is  this  that  I  behold  with 
mine  eyes  ;  meseems,  at  least,  that  the  walls  of  the 
hall  .  .  .  are  bright  as  it  were  with  flaming  fire "... 
'  Lo  !  this  is  the  wont  of  the  gods  that  hold  Olympus.' 


128  THEOCRITUS 

as  each  man  hasted  along.  Then  truly  when 
they  saw  the  young  child  Heracles  clutching 
the  snakes  twain  in  his  tender  grasp,  they  all 
cried  out  and  smote  their  hands  together.  But 
he  kept  showing  the  creeping  things  to  his 
father,  Amphitryon,  and  leaped  on  high  in  his 
childish  glee,  and  laughing,  at  his  father's 
feet  he  laid  them  down,  the  dread  monsters 
fallen  on  the  sleep  of  death.  Then  Alcmena 
in  her  own  bosom  took  and  laid  Iphicles, 
dry-eyed  and  wan  with  fear;1  but  Amphi- 
tryon, placing  the  other  child  beneath  a  lamb's- 
wool  coverlet,  betook  himself  again  to  his  bed, 
and  gat  him  to  his  rest. 

The  cocks  were  now  but  singing  their  third 
welcome  to  the  earliest  dawn,  when  Alcmena 
called  forth  Tiresias,  the  seer  that  cannot  lie, 
and  told  him  of  the  new  portent,  and  bade  him 
declare  what  things  should  come  to  pass. 

'  Nay,  and  even  if  the  gods  devise  some 
mischief,  conceal  it  not  from  me  in  ruth  and 
pity  ;  and  how  that  mortals  may  not  escape 
the  doom  that  Fate  speeds  from  her  spindle, 
O  soothsayer  Euerides,  I  am  teaching  thee, 
that  thyself  knowest  it  right  well.' 

Thus  spake  the  Queen,  and  thus  he  an- 
swered her  : 

'  Be  of  good  cheer,  daughter  of  Perseus, 
woman  that  hast  borne  the  noblest  of  children 
[and  lay  up  in  thy  heart  the  better  of  the 
things  that  are  to  be].  For  by  the  sweet  light 
that  long  hath  left  mine  eyes,  I  swear  that 
1  l-rjpbv,  prae  tiinore  nan  lacrymantem  (Paley). 


IDYL  XXIV  129 

many  Achaean  women,  as  they  card  the  soft 
wool  about  their  knees,  shall  sing  at  eventide, 
of  Alcmena's  name,  and  thou  shalt  be  honour- 
able among  the  women  of  Argos.  Such  a  man, 
even  this  thy  son,  shall  mount  to  the  starry  fir- 
mament, the  hero  broad  of  breast,  the  master 
of  all  wild  beasts,  and  of  all  mankind.  Twelve 
labours  is  he  fated  to  accomplish,  and  there- 
after to  dwell  in  the  house  of  Zeus,  but  all  his 
mortal  part  a  Trachinian  pyre  shall  possess. 

'And  the  son  of  the  Immortals,  by  virtue  of 
his  bride,  shall  he  be  called,  even  of  them  that 
urged  forth  these  snakes  from  their  dens  to 
destroy  the  child.  Verily  that  day  shall  come 
when  the  ravening  wolf,  beholding  the  fawn  in 
his  lair,  will  not  seek  to  work  him  harm. 

1  But  lady,  see  that  thou  hast  fire  at  hand, 
beneath  the  embers,  and  let  make  ready  dry 
fuel  of  gorse,  or  thorn,  or  bramble,  or  pear 
boughs  dried  with  the  wind's  buffeting,  and  on 
the  wild  fire  burn  these  serpents  twain,  at  mid- 
night, even  at  the  hour  when  they  would  have 
slain  thy  child.  But  at  dawn  let  one  of  thy 
maidens  gather  the  dust  of  the  fire,  and  bear 
and  cast  it  all,  every  grain,  over  the  river  from 
the  brow  of  the  broken  cliff,1  beyond  the  march 
of  your  land,  and  return  again  without  looking 

1  Reading,  after  Fritzsche,  pwydSos  <?/c  ir^Tpas.  We 
should  have  expected  the  accursed  ashes  (like  those  of 
Wyclif)  to  be  thrown  into  the  river ;  cf.  Virgil,  EcL 
viii.  ioi,  '  Fer  cineres,  Amarylli,  foras,  rivoque  fluenti 
transque  caput  jace  nee  respexeris. '  Virgil's  knowledge 
of  these  observances  was  not  inferior  to  that  of  Theo- 
critus. 

K 


130  THEOCRITUS 

behind.  Then  cleanse  your  house  with  the 
fire  of  unmixed  sulphur  first,  and  then,  as  is 
ordained,  with  a  filleted  bough  sprinkle  holy 
water  over  all,  mingled  with  salt.1  And  to 
Zeus  supreme,  moreover,  do  ye  sacrifice  a 
young  boar,  that  ye  may  ever  have  the  mastery 
over  all  your  enemies.' 

So  spake  he,  and  thrust  back  his  ivory  chair, 
and  departed,  even  Tiresias,  despite  the  weight 
of  all  his  many  years. 

But  Heracles  was  reared  under  his  mother's 
care,  like  some  young  sapling  in  a  garden  close, 
being  called  the  son  of  Amphitryon  of  Argos. 
And  the  lad  was  taught  his  letters  by  the  ancient 
Linus,  Apollo's  son,  a  tutor  ever  watchful.  And 
to  draw  the  bow,  and  send  the  arrow  to  the 
mark  did  Eurytus  teach  him,  Eurytus  rich  in 
wide  ancestral  lands.  And  Eumolpus,  son  of 
Philammon,  made  the  lad  a  minstrel,  and  formed 
his  hands  to  the  boxwood  lyre.  And  all  the 
tricks  wherewith  the  nimble  Argive  cross-but- 
tockers  give  each  other  the  fall,  and  all  the 
wiles  of  boxers  skilled  with  the  gloves,  and  all 
the  art  that  the  rough  and  tumble  fighters  have 
sought  out  to  aid  their  science,  all  these  did 
Heracles  learn  from  Harpalacus  of  Phanes,  the 
son  of  Hermes.  Him  no  man  that  beheld, 
even  from  afar,  would  have  confidently  met  as 
a  wrestler  in  the  lists,  so  grim  a  brow  overhung 
his  dreadful  face.  And  to  drive  forth  his  horses 
'neath  the  chariot,  and  safely  to  guide  them 


1  Reading    (ffrtfjLfjLfvij).      If  tffTe/u.(di>oi>    is    read,    the 
phrase  will  mean  '  pure  brimming  water.  ' 


IDYL  XXIV  131 

round  the  goals,  with  the  naves  of  the  wheels 
unharmed,  Amphitryon  taught  his  son  in  his 
loving-kindness,  Amphitryon  himself,  for  many 
a  prize  had  he  borne  away  from  the  fleet  races 
in  Argos,  pasture-land  of  steeds,  and  unbroken 
were  the  chariots  that  he  mounted,  till  time 
loosened  their  leathern  thongs. 

But  to  charge  with  spear  in  rest,  against  a 
foe,  guarding,  meanwhile,  his  back  with  the 
shield,  to  bide  the  biting  swords,  to  order  a 
company,  and  to  measure,  in  his  onslaught,  the 
ambush  of  foemen,  and  to  give  horsemen  the 
word  of  command,  he  was  taught  by  knightly 
Castor.  An  outlaw  came  Castor  out  of  Argos, 
when  Tydeus  was  holding  all  the  land  and  all 
the  wide  vineyards,  having  received  Argos,  a 
land  of  steeds,  from  the  hand  of  Adrastus.  No 
peer  in  war  among  the  demigods  had  Castor, 
till  age  wore  down  his  youth. 

Thus  did  his  dear  mother  let  train  Heracles, 
and  the  child's  bed  was  made  hard  by  his 
father's  ;  a  lion's  skin  was  the  coverlet  he  loved  ; 
his  dinner  was  roast  meat,  and  a  great  Dorian 
loaf  in  a  basket,  a  meal  to  satisfy  a  delving 
hind.  At  the  close  of  day  he  would  take  a 
meagre  supper  that  needed  no  fire  to  the  cook- 
ing, and  his  plain  kirtle  fell  no  lower  than  the 
middle  of  his  shin. 


IDYL    XXV 

HERACLES   THE   LION-SLAYER 

This  is  another  idyl  of  the  epic  sort.  The  poet's  interest 
in  the  details  of  the  rural  life,  and  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  herds  of  King  Augeas,  seem  to  mark  it 
as  the  work  of  Theocritus.  It  has,  however,  been 
attributed  by  learned  conjecture  to  various  -writers 
of  an  older  age.  The  idyl,  or  fragment,  is  incom- 
plete. Heracles  visits  the  herds  of  A  ugeas  (to  clean 
their  stalls  was  one  of  his  labours},  and,  after  an 
encounter  with  a  bull,  describes  to  the  king's  son  his 
battle  with  the  lion  of  Nemea. 

.  .  .  Him  answered  the  old  man,  a  husband- 
man that  had  the  care  of  the  tillage,  ceasing 
a  moment  from  the  work  that  lay  betwixt  his 
hands — 

'  Right  readily  will  I  tell  thee,  stranger,  con- 
cerning the  things  whereof  thou  inquirest,  for  I 
revere  the  awful  wrath  of  Hermes  of  the  road- 
side. Yea  he,  they  say,  is  of  all  the  heavenly 
Gods  the  most  in  anger,  if  any  deny  the  way- 
farer that  asks  eagerly  for  the  way. 

'  The  fleecy  flocks  of  the  king  Augeas  feed 
not  all  on  one  pasture,  nor  in  one  place,  but 
some  there  be  that  graze  by  the  river- banks 


IDYL  XXV  133 

round  Elisus,  and  some  by  the  sacred  stream 
of  divine  Alpheius,  and  some  by  Buprasium 
rich  in  clusters  of  the  vine,  and  some  even  in 
this  place.  And  behold,  the  pens  for  each  herd 
after  its  kind  are  builded  apart.  Nay,  but  for 
all  the  herds  of  Augeas,  overflowing  as  they  be, 
these  pasture  lands  are  ever  fresh  and  flowering, 
around  the  great  marsh  of  Peneus,  for  with 
herbage  honey-sweet  the  dewy  water-meadows 
are  ever  blossoming  abundantly,  and  this  fodder 
it  is  that  feeds  the  strength  of  horned  kine. 
And  this  their  steading,  on  thy  right  hand 
stands  all  plain  to  view,  beyond  the  running 
river,  there,  where  the  plane-trees  grow  luxu- 
riant, and  the  green  wild  olive,  a  sacred  grove, 
O  stranger,  of  Apollo  of  the  pastures,  a  God 
most  gracious  unto  prayer.  Next  thereto  are 
builded  long  rows  of  huts  for  the  country  folk, 
even  for  us  that  do  zealously  guard  the  great 
and  marvellous  wealth  of  the  king ;  casting  in 
season  the  seed  in  fallow  lands,  thrice,  ay,  and 
four  times  broken  by  the  plough.  As  for  the 
inarches,  truly,  the  ditchers  know  them,  men  of 
many  toils,  who  throng  to  the  wine-press  at  the 
coming  of  high  summer  tide.  For,  behold,  all 
this  plain  is  held  by  gracious  Augeas,  and  the 
wheat -bearing  plough-land,  and  the  orchards 
with  their  trees,  as  far  as  the  upland  farm  of 
the  ridge,  whence  the  fountains  spring ;  over 
all  which  lands  we  go  labouring,  the  whole  day 
long,  as  is  the  wont  of  thralls  that  live  their 
lives  among  the  fields. 

'  But,  prithee,  tell  thou  me,  in  thy  turn  (and 


134  THEOCRITUS 

for  thine  own  gain  it  will  be),  whom  comest 
thou  hither  to  seek  ;  in  quest,  perchance,  of 
Augeas,  or  one  of  his  servants  ?  Of  all  these 
things,  behold,  I  have  knowledge,  and  could 
tell  thee  plainly,  for  methinks  that  thou,  for  thy 
part,  comest  of  no  churlish  stock,  nay,  nor  hath 
thy  shape  aught  of  the  churl,  so  excellent  in 
might  shows  thy  form.  Lo,  now,  even  such  are 
the  children  of  the  immortal  Gods  among  mortal 
men.'  Then  the  mighty  son  of  Zeus  answered 
him,  saying — 

'Yea,  old  man,  I  fain  would  see  Augeas, 
prince  of  the  Epeans,  for  truly  'twas  need  of 
him  that  brought  me  hither.  If  he  abides  at 
the  town  with  his  citizens,  caring  for  his  people, 
and  settling  the  pleas,  do  thou,  old  man,  bid 
one  of  the  servants  to  guide  me  on  the  way, 
a  head-man  of  the  more  honourable  sort  in 
these  fields,  to  whom  I  may  both  tell  my  desire, 
and  learn  in  turn  what  I  w-ould,  for  God  has 
made  all  men  dependent,  each  on  each.' 

Then  the  old  man,  the  worthy  husbandman, 
answered  him  again — 

'  By  the  guidance  of  some  one  of  the  im- 
mortals hast  thou  come  hither,  stranger,  for 
verily  all  that  thou  requirest  hath  quickly  been 
fulfilled.  For  hither  hath  come  Augeas,  the 
dear  son  of  Helios,  with  his  own  son,  the  strong 
and  princely  Phyleus.  But  yesterday  he  came 
hither  from  the  city,  to  be  overseeing  after 
many  days  his  substance,  that  he  hath  un- 
counted in  the  fields.  Thus  do  even  kings  in 
their  inmost  hearts  believe  that  the  eye  of  the 


IDYL  XXV  135 

master  makes  the  house  more  prosperous.  Nay 
come,  let  us  hasten  to  him,  and  I  will  lead 
thee  to  our  dwelling,  where  methinks  we  shall 
find  the  king.' 

So  he  spake,  and  began  to  lead  the  way,  but 
in  his  mind,  as  he  marked  the  lion's  hide,  and 
the  club  that  rilled  the  stranger's  fist,  the  old 
man  was  deeply  pondering  as  to  whence  he 
came,  and  ever  he  was  eager  to  inquire  of  him. 
But  back  again  he  kept  catching  the  word  as  it 
rose  to  his  lips,  in  fear  lest  he  should  speak 
somewhat  out  of  season  (his  companion  being 
in  haste)  for  hard  it  is  to  know  another's 
mood. 

Now  as  they  began  to  draw  nigh,  the  dogs 
from  afar  were  instantly  aware  of  them,  both 
by  the  scent,  and  by  the  sound  of  footsteps, 
and,  yelling  furiously,  they  charged  from  all 
sides  against  Heracles,  son  of  Amphitryon, 
while  with  faint  yelping,  on  the  other  side, 
they  greeted  the  old  man,  and  fawned  around 
him.  But  he  just  lifted  stones  from  the 
ground,1  and  scared  them  away,  and,  raising 
his  voice,  he  right  roughly  chid  them  all,  and 
made  them  cease  from  their  yelping,  being 
glad  in  his  heart  withal  for  that  they  guarded 
his  dwelling,  even  when  he  was  afar.  Then 
thus  he  spake — 

'  Lo,  what  a  comrade  for  men  have  the  Gods, 

the   lords  of  all,   made   in  this  creature,  how 

mindful  is   he  !      If  he  had  but   so  much   wit 

within  him  as  to  know  against  whom  he  should 

1  Reading  6Woc. 


136  THEOCRITUS 

rage,  and  with  whom  he  should  forbear,  no 
beast  in  the  world  could  vie  with  his  deserts. 
But  now  he  is  something  over-fierce  and  blindly 
furious.' 

So  he  spake,  and  they  hastened,  and  came 
even  to  that  dwelling  whither  they  were  faring. 

Now  Helios  had  turned  his  steeds  to  the 
west,  bringing  the  late  day,  and  the  fatted 
sheep  came  up  from  the  pastures  to  the  pens 
and  folds.  Next  thereafter  the  kine  approach- 
ing, ten  thousand  upon  ten  thousand,  showed 
for  multitude  even  like  the  watery  clouds  that 
roll  forward  in  heaven  under  the  stress  of  the 
South  Wind,  or  the  Thracian  North  (and 
countless  are  they,  and  ceaseless  in  their  airy 
passage,  for  the  wind's  might  rolls  up  the  rear 
as  numerous  as  the  van,  and  hosts  upon  hosts 
again  are  moving  in  infinite  array),  even  so 
many  did  herds  upon  herds  of  kine  move  ever 
forwards.  And,  lo,  the  whole  plain  was  filled, 
and  all  the  ways,  as  the  cattle  fared  onwards, 
and  the  rich  fields  could  not  contain  their  low- 
ing, and  the  stalls  were  lightly  filled  with  kine 
of  trailing  feet,  and  the  sheep  were  being  penned 
in  the  folds. 

There  no  man,  for  lack  of  labour,  stood  idle 
by  the  cattle,  though  countless  men  were  there, 
but  one  was  fastening  guards  of  wood,  with 
shapely  thongs,  about  the  feet  of  the  kine,  that 
he  might  draw  near  and  stand  by,  and  milk 
them.  And  another  beneath  their  mothers 
kind  was  placing  the  calves  right  eager  to 
drink  of  the  sweet  milk.  Yet  another  held  a 


IDYL  XXV  137 

milking  pail,  while  his  fellow  was  fixing  the 
rich  cheese,  and  another  led  in  the  bulls  apart 
from  the  cows.  Meanwhile  Augeas  was  going 
round  all  the  stalls,  and  marking  the  care  his 
herdsmen  bestowed  upon  all  that  was  his. 
And  the  king's  son,  and  the  mighty,  deep- 
pondering  Heracles,  went  along  with  the  king, 
as  he  passed  through  his  great  possessions. 
Then  though  he  bore  a  stout  spirit  in  his  heart, 
and  a  mind  stablished  always  imperturbable, 
yet  the  son  of  Amphitryon  still  marvelled  out 
of  measure,  as  he  beheld  these  countless  troops 
of  cattle.  Yea  none  would  have  deemed  or 
believed  that  the  substance  of  one  man  could 
be  so  vast,  nay,  nor  ten  men's  wealth,  were 
they  the  richest  in  sheep  of  all  the  kings  in  the 
world.  But  Helios  to  his  son  gave  this  gift 
pre-eminent,  namely  to  abound  in  flocks  far 
above  all  other  men,  and  Helios  himself  did 
ever  and  always  give  increase  to  the  cattle,  for 
upon  his  herds  came  no  disease,  of  them  that 
always  minish  the  herdman's  toil.  But  always 
more  in  number  waxed  the  horned  kine,  and 
goodlier,  year  by  year,  for  verily  they  all 
brought  forth  exceeding  abundantly,  and  never 
cast  their  young,  and  chiefly  bare  heifers. 

With  the  kine  went  continually  three  hundred 
bulls,  white-shanked,  and  curved  of  horn, — and 
two  hundred  others,  red  cattle, — and  all  these 
already  were  of  an  age  to  mate  with  the  kine. 
Other  twelve  bulls,  again,  besides  these,  went 
together  in  a  herd,  being  sacred  to  Helios. 
They  were  white  as  swans,  and  shone  among 


138  THEOCRITUS 

all  the  herds  of  trailing  gait.  And  these  dis- 
daining the  herds  grazed  still  on  the  rich  her- 
bage in  the  pastures,  and  they  were  exceeding 
high  of  heart.  And  whensoever  the  swift  wild 
beasts  came  down  from  the  rough  oakwood  to 
the  plain,  to  seek  the  wilder  cattle,  afield  went 
these  bulls  first  to  the  fight,  at  the  smell  of  the 
savour  of  the  beasts,  bellowing  fearfully,  and 
glancing  slaughter  from  their  brows. 

Among  these  bulls  was  one  pre-eminent  for 
strength  and  might,  and  for  reckless  pride, 
even  the  mighty  Phaethon,  that  all  the  herds- 
men still  likened  to  a  star,  because  he  always 
shone  so  bright  when  he  went  among  the  other 
cattle,  and  was  right  easy  to  be  discerned. 
Now  when  this  bull  beheld  the  dried  skin  of 
the  fierce -faced  lion,  he  rushed  against  the 
keen-eyed  Heracles  himself,  to  dash  his  head 
and  stalwart  front  against  the  sides  of  the 
hero.  Even  as  he  charged,  the  prince  forth- 
with grasped  him  with  strong  hand  by  the  left 
horn,  and  bowed  his  neck  down  to  the  ground, 
puissant  as  he  was,  and,  with  the  weight  of  his 
shoulder,  crushed  him  backwards,  while  clear 
stood  out  the  strained  muscle  over  the  sinews 
on  the  hero's  upper  arm.  Then  marvelled  the 
king  himself,  and  his  son,  the  warlike  Phyleus, 
and  the  herdsmen  that  were  set  over  the  horned 
kine, — when  they  beheld  the  exceeding  strength 
of  the  son  of  Amphitryon. 

Now  these  twain,  even  Phyleus  and  mighty 
Heracles,  left  the  fat  fields  there,  and  were 
making  for  the  city.  But  just  where  they 


IDYL  XXV  139 

entered  on  the  highway,  after  quickly  speed- 
ing over  the  narrow  path  that  stretched  through 
the  vineyard  from  the  farmhouses,  a  dim  path 
through  the  green  wood,  thereby  the  dear  son 
of  Augeas  bespake  the  child  of  supreme  Zeus, 
who  was  behind  him,  slightly  turning  his  head 
over  his  right  shoulder, 

'  Stranger,  long  time  ago  I  heard  a  tale, 
which,  as  of  late  I  guess,  surely  concerneth 
thee.  For  there  came  hither,  in  his  wayfaring 
out  of  Argos,  a  certain  young  Achaean,  from 
Helice,  by  the  seashore,  who  verily  told  a  tale 
and  that  among  many  Epeians  here, — how, 
even  in  his  presence,  a  certain  Argive  slew  a 
wild  beast,  a  lion  dread,  a  curse  of  evil  omen 
to  the  country  folk.  The  monster  had  its 
hollow  lair  by  the  grove  of  Nemean  Zeus,  but 
as  for  him  that  slew  it,  I  know  not  surely 
whether  he  was  a  man  of  sacred  Argos,  there, 
or  a  dweller  in  Tiryns  city,  or  in  Mycenae,  as 
he  that  told  the  tale  declared.  By  birth,  how- 
beit,  he  said  (if  rightly,  I  recall  it)  that  the  hero 
was  descended  from  Perseus.  Methinks  that 
none  of  the  Aegialeis  had  the  hardihood  for 
this  deed  save  thyself;  nay,  the  hide  of  the 
beast  that  covers  thy  sides  doth  clearly  pro- 
claim the  mighty  deed  of  thy  hands.  But 
come  now,  hero,  tell  thou  me  first,  that  truly 
I  may  know,  whether  my  foreboding  be  right 
or  wrong,- — if  thou  art  that  man  of  whom  the 
Achaean  from  Helice  spake  in  our  hearing, 
and  if  I  read  thee  aright.  Tell  me  how  single- 
handed  thou  didst  slay  this  ruinous  pest,  and 


140  THEOCRITUS 

how  it  came  to  the  well-watered  ground  of  Nemea, 
for  not  in  Apis  couldst  thou  find, — not  though 
thou  soughtest  after  it, — so  great  a  monster. 
For  the  country  feeds  no  such  large  game,  but 
bears,  and  boars,  and  the  pestilent  race  of 
wolves.  Wherefore  all  were  in  amaze  that 
listened  to  the  story,  and  there  were  some  who 
said  that  the  traveller  was  lying,  and  pleasing 
them  that  stood  by  with  the  words  of  an  idle 
tongue.' 

Thus  Phyleus  spake,  and  stepped  out  of  the 
middle  of  the  road,  that  there  might  be  space 
for  both  to  walk  abreast,  and  that  so  he  might 
hear  the  more  easily  the  words  of  Heracles  who 
now  came  abreast  with  him,  and  spake  thus, 

'  O  son  of  Augeas,  concerning  that  whereof 
thou  first  didst  ask  me,  thyself  most  easily  hast 
discerned  it  aright.  Nay  then,  about  this  mon- 
ster I  will  tell  thee  all,  even  how  all  was  done, 
— since  thou  art  eager  to  hear, — save,  indeed, 
as  to  whence  he  came,  for,  many  as  the  Argives 
be,  not  one  can  tell  that  clearly.  Only  we  guess 
that  some  one  of  the  Immortals,  in  wrath  for 
sacrifice  unoffered,  sent  this  bane  against  the 
children  of  Phoroneus.  For  over  all  the  men 
of  Pisa  the  lion  swept,  like  a  flood,  and  still 
ravaged  insatiate,  and  chiefly  spoiled  the  Bem- 
binaeans,  that  were  his  neighbours,  and  endured 
things  intolerable. 

'  Now  this  labour  did  Eurystheus  enjoin  on 
me  to  fulfil  the  first  of  all,  and  bade  me  slay 
the  dreadful  monster.  So  I  took  my  supple 
bow,  and  hollow  quiver  full  of  arrows,  and  set 


IDYL  XXV  141 

forth  ;  and  in  my  other  hand  I  held  my  stout 
club,  well  balanced,  and  wrought,  with  unstripped 
bark,  from  a  shady  wild  olive-tree,  that  I  myself 
had  found,  under  sacred  Helicon,  and  dragged 
up  the  whole  tree,  with  the  bushy  roots.  But 
when  I  came  to  the  place  whereby  the  lion 
abode,  even  then  I  grasped  my  bow  and  slipped 
the  string  up  to  the  curved  tip,  and  straightway 
laid  thereon  the  bitter  arrow.  Then  I  cast  my 
eyes  on  every  side,  spying  for  the  baneful  mon- 
ster, if  perchance  I  might  see  him,  or  ever  he 
saw  me.  It  was  now  midday,  and  nowhere 
might  I  discern  the  tracks  of  the  monster,  nor 
hear  his  roaring.  Nay,  nor  was  there  one 
man  to  be  seen  with  the  cattle,  and  the  tillage 
through  all  the  furrowed  lea,  of  whom  I  might 
inquire,  but  wan  fear  still  held  them  all  within 
the  homesteads.  Yet  I  stayed  not  in  my  going, 
as  I  quested  through  the  deep-wooded  hill,  till 
I  beheld  him,  and  instantly  essayed  my  prowess. 
Now  early  in  the  evening  he  was  making  for 
his  lair,  full  fed  with  blood  and  flesh,  and  all 
his  bristling  mane  was  dashed  with  carnage, 
and  his  fierce  face,  and  his  breast,  and  still 
with  his  tongue  he  kept  licking  his  bearded 
chin.  Then  instantly  I  hid  me  in  the  dark 
undergrowth,  on  the  wooded  hill,  awaiting  his 
approach,  and  as  he  came  nearer  I  smote  him 
on  the  left  flank,  but  all  in  vain,  for  naught  did 
the  sharp  arrow  pierce  through  his  flesh,  but 
leaped  back,  and  fell  on  the  green  grass.  Then 
quickly  he  raised  his  tawny  head  from  the 
ground,  in  amaze,  glancing  all  around  with 


1 42  THEOCRITUS 

his  eyes,  and  with  jaws  distent  he  showed  his 
ravenous  teeth.  Then  I  launched  against  him 
another  shaft  from  the  string,  in  wrath  that  the 
former  flew  vainly  from  my  hand,  and  I  smote 
him  right  in  the  middle  of  the  breast,  where 
the  lung  is  seated,  yet  not  even  so  did  the 
cruel  arrow  sink  into  his  hide,  but  fell  before 
his  feet,  in  vain,  to  no  avail.  Then  for  the 
third  time  was  I  making  ready  to  draw  my 
bow  again,  in  great  shame  and  wrath,  but  the 
furious  beast  glanced  his  eyes  around,  and 
spied  me.  With  his  long  tail  he  lashed  his 
flanks,  and  straightway  bethought  him  of  battle. 
His  neck  was  clothed  with  wrath,  and  his  tawny- 
hair  bristled  round  his  lowering  brow,  and  his 
spine  was  curved  like  a  bow,  his  whole  force 
being  gathered  up  from  under  towards  his 
flanks  and  loins.  And  as  when  a  wainwright, 
one  skilled  in  many  an  art,  doth  bend  the  sap- 
lings of  seasoned  fig-tree,  having  first  tempered 
them  in  the  fire,  to  make  tires  for  the  axles  of 
his  chariot,  and  even  then  the  fig-tree  wood  is 
like  to  leap  from  his  hands  in  the  bending, 
and  springs  far  away  at  a  single  bound,  even 
so  the  dread  lion  leaped  on  me  from  afar, 
huddled  in  a  heap,  and  keen  to  glut  him  with 
my  flesh.  Then  with  one  hand  I  thrust  in 
front  of  me  my  arrows,  and  the  double  folded 
cloak  from  my  shoulder,  and  with  the  other 
raised  the  seasoned  club  above  my  head,  and 
drove  at  his  crest,  and  even  on  the  shaggy 
scalp  of  the  insatiate  beast  brake  my  grievous 
cudgel  of  wild  olive-tree.  Then  or  ever  he 


IDYL  XXV  143 

reached  me,  he  fell  from  his  flight,  on  to  the 
ground,  and  stood  on  trembling  feet,  with  wag- 
ging head,  for  darkness  gathered  about  both 
his  eyes,  his  brain  being  shaken  in  his  skull 
with  the  violence  of  the  blow.  Then  when  I 
marked  how  he  was  distraught  with  the  griev- 
ous torment,  or  ever  he  could  turn  and  gain 
breath  again,  I  fell  on  him,  and  seized  him  by 
the  column  of  his  stubborn  neck.  To  earth  I 
cast  my  bow,  and  woven  quiver,  and  strangled 
him  with  all  my  force,  gripping  him  with  stub- 
born clasp  from  the  rear,  lest  he  should  rend 
my  flesh  with  his  claws,  and  I  sprang  on  him 
and  kept  firmly  treading  his  hind  feet  into  the 
soil  with  my  heels,  while  I  used  his  sides  to 
guard  my  thighs,  till  I  had  strained  his  shoulders 
utterly,  then  lifted  him  up,  all  breathless, — and 
Hell  took  his  monstrous  life. 

'  And  then  at  last  I  took  thought  how  I 
should  strip  the  rough  hide  from  the  dead 
beast's  limbs,  a  right  hard  labour,  for  it  might 
not  be  cut  with  steel,  when  I  tried,  nor  stone, 
nor  with  aught  else.1  Thereon  one  of  the  Im- 
mortals put  into  my  mind  the  thought  to  cleave 
the  lion's  hide  with  his  own  claws.  With  these 
I  speedily  flayed  it  off,  and  cast  it  about  my 
limbs,  for  my  defence  against  the  brunt  of 
wounding  war. 

'  Friend,  lo  even  thus  befel  the  slaying  of 
the  Nemean  Lion,  that  aforetime  had  brought 
many  a  bane  on  flocks  and  men.' 

1  Reading  &\\y,  as  in  Wordsworth's  conjecture,  in- 
stead of  v\y. 


IDYL    XXVI 

This  idyl  narrates  the  murder  of  Pentheus,  •who  was 
torn  to  pieces  (after  the  Dionysiac  Ritual}  by  his 
mother.  Agave,  and  other  Theban  women,  for 
having  -watched  the  celebration  of  the  mysteries  of 
Dionysus.  It  is  still  dangerous  for  an  Australian 
native  to  approach  the  women  of  the  tribe  -while  they 
are  celebrating  their  savage  rites.  The  conserva- 
tism of  Greek  religion  is  -well  illustrated  by  Theo- 
critus's  apology  for  the  truly  savage  revenge  com- 
memorated in  the  old  Theban  legend. 

I  NO,  and  Autonoe,  and  Agave  of  the  apple 
cheeks,  —  three  bands  of  Maenads  to  the 
mountain  -  side  they  led,  these  ladies  three. 
They  stripped  the  wild  leaves  of  a  rugged 
oak,  and  fresh  ivy,  and  asphodel  of  the  upper 
earth,  and  in  an  open  meadow  they  built 
twelve  altars  ;  for  Semele  three,  and  nine  for 
Dionysus.  The  mystic  cakes  a  from  the 
mystic  chest  they  had  taken  in  their  hands, 
and  in  silence  had  laid  them  on  the  altars  of 
new-stripped  boughs  ;  so  Dionysus  ever  taught 
the  rite,  and  herewith  was  he  wont  to  be  well 
pleased. 

Now  Pentheus  from  a  lofty  cliff  was  watch- 
1   Reading 


IDYL  XXVI  145 

ing  all,  deep  hidden  in  an  ancient  lentisk  bush, 
a  plant  of  that  land.  Autonoe  first  beheld 
him,  and  shrieked  a  dreadful  yell,  and,  rushing 
suddenly,  with  her  feet  dashed  all  confused  the 
mystic  things  of  Bacchus  the  wild.  For  these 
are  things  unbeholden  of  men  profane.  Frenzied 
was  she,  and  then  forthwith  the  others  too  were 
frenzied.  Then  Pentheus  fled  in  fear,  and  they 
pursued  after  him,  with  raiment  kirtled  through 
the  belt  above  the  knee. 

This  much  said  Pentheus,  '  Women,  what 
would  ye  ? '  and  thus  answered  Autonoe,  '  That 
shalt  thou  straightway  know,  ere  thou  hast 
heard  it.' 

The  mother  seized  her  child's  head,  and 
cried  loud,  as  is  the  cry  of  a  lioness  over  her 
cubs,  while  Ino,  for  her  part,  set  her  heel  on 
the  body,  and  brake  asunder  the  broad  shoulder, 
shoulder-blade  and  all,  and  in  the  same  strain 
wrought  Autonoe.  The  other  women  tore  the 
remnants  piecemeal,  and  to  Thebes  they  came, 
all  bedabbled  with  blood,  from  the  mountains 
bearing  not  Pentheus  but  repentance.1 

I  care  for  none  of  these  things,  nay,  nor  let 
another  take  thought  to  make  himself  the  foe 
of  Dionysus,  not  though  one  should  suffer  yet 
greater  torments  than  these, — being  but  a  child 
of  nine  years  old  or  entering,  perchance,  on  his 
tenth  year.  For  me,  may  I  be  pure  and  holy, 
and  find  favour  in  the  eyes  of  the  pure  ! 

From  aegis-bearing  Zeus  hath  this   augury 

1  Hft>6ri/j.a  i-.al  ov  irfvOija,  a  play  on  words  difficult 
to  retain  in  English/     Compare  Idyl  xiii.  line  74. 
L 


146  THEOCRITUS 

all  honour,  '  to  the  children  of  the  godly  the 
better  fortune,  but  evil  befall  the  offspring  of 
the  ungodly.' 

'  Hail  to  Dionysus,  whom  Zeus  supreme 
brought  forth  in  snowy  Dracanus,  when  he 
had  unburdened  his  mighty  thigh,  and  hail  to 
beautiful  Semele  :  and  to  her  sisters, —  Cad- 
meian  ladies  honoured  of  all  daughters  of 
heroes, — who  did  this  deed  at  the  behest  of 
Dionysus,  a  deed  not  to  be  blamed  ;  let  no 
man  blame  the  actions  of  the  gods.' 


IDYL    XXVII 

THE   WOOING    OF    DAPHNIS 

The  authenticity  of  this  idyl  has  been  denied,  partly 
because  the  Daphnis  of  the  poem  is  not  identical  in 
character  with  the  Daphnis  of  the  first  idyl.  But 
the  piece  is  certainly  worthy  of  a  place  beside  the 
work  of  Theocritus.  The  dialogue  is  here  arranged 
as  in  the  text  of  Fritssche. 

The  Maiden.  Helen  the  wise  did  Paris,  another 
neatherd,  ravish  ! 

Daphnis.  'Tis  rather  this  Helen  that  kisses 
her  shepherd,  even  me  ! * 

The  Maiden.  Boast  not,  little  satyr,  for 
kisses  they  call  an  empty  favour. 

Daphnis.  Nay,  even  in  empty  kisses  there  is 
a  sweet  delight. 

The  Maiden.  I  wash  my  lips,  I  blow  away 
from  me  thy  kisses  ! 

Daphnis.  Dost  thou  wash  thy  lips  ?  Then 
give  me  them  again  to  kiss  ! 

The  Maiden.  'Tis  for  thee  to  caress  thy  kine, 
not  a  maiden  unwed. 

1  The  conjecture  e/*a  5'  gives  a  good  sense,  mea  vero 
Helena  me  potius  ultra  petit. 


148  THEOCRITUS 

Daphnis.  Boast  not,  for  swiftly  thy  youth  flits 
by  thee,  like  a  dream. 

The  Maiden.  The  grapes  turn  to  raisins,  not 
wholly  will  the  dry  rose  perish. 

Daphnis.  Come  hither,  beneath  the  wild 
olives,  that  I  may  tell  thee  a  tale. 

The  Maiden.  I  will  not  come  ;  ay,  ere  now 
with  a  sweet  tale  didst  thou  beguile  me. 

Daphnis.  Come  hither,  beneath  the  elms,  to 
listen  to  my  pipe  ! 

The  Maiden.  Nay,  please  thyself,  no  woful 
tune  delights  me. 

Daphnis.  Ah  maiden,  see  that  thou  too  shun 
the  anger  of  the  Paphian. 

The  Maiden.  Good-bye  to  the  Paphian,  let 
Artemis  only  be  friendly  ! 

Daphnis.  Say  not  so,  lest  she  smite  thee, 
and  thou  fall  into  a  trap  whence  there  is  no 
escape. 

The  Maiden.  Let  her  smite  an  she  will  ; 
Artemis  again  would  be  my  defender.  Lay  no 
hand  on  me  ;  nay,  if  thou  do  more,  and  touch 
me  with  thy  lips,  I  will  bite  thee.1 

Daphnis.  From  Love  thou  dost  not  flee, 
whom  never  yet  maiden  fled. 

The  Maiden.  Escape  him,  by  Pan,  I  do,  but 
thou  dost  ever  bear  his  yoke. 

Daphnis.  This  is  ever  my  fear  lest  he  even 
give  thee  to  a  meaner  man. 

The  Maiden.  Many  have  been  my  wooers, 
but  none  has  won  my  heart. 

1  Reading,  as  in  Wordsworth's  conjecture,  /J.T]  VijSdXTjj 
TOf  \etpa,  KO.I  ei  y'  t 


IDYL  XXVII  149 

Daphnis.  Yea  I,  out  of  many  chosen,  come 
here  thy  wooer. 

The  Maiden.  Dear  love,  what  can  I  do  ? 
Marriage  has  much  annoy. 

Daphnis.  Nor  pain  nor  sorrow  has  marriage, 
but  mirth  and  dancing. 

The  Maiden.  Ay,  but  they  say  that  women 
dread  their  lords. 

Daphnis.  Nay,  rather  they  always  rule  them, 
— whom  do  women  fear  ? 

The  Maiden.  Travail  I  dread,  and  sharp  is 
the  shaft  of  Eilithyia. 

Daphnis.  But  thy  queen  is  Artemis,  that 
lightens  labour. 

The  Maiden.  But  I  fear  childbirth,  lest,  per- 
chance, I  lose  my  beauty. 

Daphnis.  Nay,  if  thou  bearest  dear  children 
thou  wilt  see  the  light  revive  in  thy  sons. 

The  Maiden.  And  what  wedding  gift  dost 
thou  bring  me  if  I  consent  ? 

Daphnis.  My  whole  flock,  all  my  groves,  and 
all  my  pasture  land  shall  be  thine. 

The  Maiden.  Swear  that  thou  wilt  not  win 
me,  and  then  depart  and  leave  me  forlorn. 

Daphnis.  So  help  me  Pan  I  would  not 
leave  thee,  didst  thou  even  choose  to  banish 
me  ! 

The  Maiden.  Dost  thou  build  me  bowers, 
and  a  house,  and  folds  for  flocks  ? 

Daphnis.  Yea,  bowers  I  build  thee,  the 
flocks  I  tend  are  fair. 

The  Maiden.  But  to  my  grey  old  father, 
what  tale,  ah  what,  shall  I  tell  ? 


ISO  THEOCRITUS 

Daphnis.  He  will  approve  thy  wedlock  when 
he  has  heard  my  name. 

The  Maiden.  Prithee,  tell  me  that  name  of 
thine  ;  in  a  name  there  is  often  delight. 

Daphnis.  Daphnis  am  I,  Lycidas  is  my  father, 
and  Nomaea  is  my  mother. 

The  Maiden.  Thou  comest  of  men  well-born, 
but  there  I  am  thy  match. 

Daphnis.  I  know  it,  thou  art  of  high  degree, 
for  thy  father  is  Menalcas.1 

The  Maiden.  Show  me  thy  grove,  wherein  is 
thy  cattle-stall. 

Daphnis.  See  here,  how  they  bloom,  my 
slender  cypress-trees. 

The  Maiden.  Graze  on,  my  goats,  I  go  to 
learn  the  herdsman's  labours. 

Daphnis.  Feed  fair,  my  bulls,  while  I  show 
my  woodlands  to  my  lady  ! 

The  Maiden.  What  dost  thou,  little  satyr ; 
why  dost  thou  touch  my  breast  ? 

Daphnis.  I  will  show  thee  that  these  earliest 
apples  are  ripe.2 

The  Maiden.  By  Pan,  I  swoon ;  away,  take 
back  thy  hand. 

Daphnis.  Courage,  dear  girl,  why  fearest  thou 
me,  thou  art  over  fearful ! 

The  Maiden.  Thou  makest  me  lie  down  by 
the  water-course,  defiling  my  fair  raiment ! 

Daphnis.  Nay,  see,  'neath  thy  raiment  fair  I 
am  throwing  this  soft  fleece. 

1  Reading  olS',  &KpaTL/j.iij  ffffft,  with  Fritzsche.  Com- 
pare the  conjecture  of  Wordsworth,  'OvS'  &Kpa  rl  /J.TJ 
fffffi ;  2  See  Wordsworth's  explanation. 


IDYL  XXVII  151 

The  Maiden.  Ah,  ah,  thou  hast  snatched  my 
girdle  too  ;  why  hast  thou  loosed  my  girdle  ? 

Daphnis.  These  first-fruits  I  offer,  a  gift  to 
the  Paphian. 

The  Maiden.  Stay,  wretch,  hark ;  surely  a 
stranger  cometh  ;  nay,  I  hear  a  sound. 

Daphnis.  The  cypresses  do  but  whisper  to 
each  other  of  thy  wedding. 

The  Maiden.  Thou  hast  torn  my  mantle,  and 
unclad  am  I. 

Daphnis.  Another  mantle  I  will  give  thee, 
and  an  ampler  far  than  thine. 

The  Maiden.  Thou  dost  promise  all  things, 
but  soon  thou  wilt  not  give  me  even  a  grain 
of  salt. 

Daphnis.  Ah,  would  that  I  could  give  thee 
my  very  life. 

The  Maiden.  Artemis,  be  not  wrathful,  thy 
votary  breaks  her  vow. 

Daphnis.  I  will  slay  a  calf  for  Love,  and  for 
Aphrodite  herself  a  heifer. 

The  Maiden.  A  maiden  I  came  hither,  a 
woman  shall  I  go  homeward. 

Daphnis.  Nay,  a  wife  and  a  mother  of  child- 
ren shalt  thou  be,  no  more  a  maiden. 

So,  each  to  each,  in  the  joy  of  their  young 
fresh  limbs  they  were  murmuring :  it  was  the 
hour  of  secret  love.  Then  she  arose,  and  stole 
to  herd  her  sheep  ;  with  shamefast  eyes  she 
went,  but  her  heart  was  comforted  within  her. 
And  he  went  to  his  herds  of  kine,  rejoicing  in 
his  wedlock. 


IDYL    XXVIII 

This  little  piece  of  Aeolic  verse  accompanied  the  pre- 
sent of  a  distaff,  which  Theocritus  brought  from 
Syracuse  to  Theugenis,  the  wife  of  his  friend  Xicias, 
the  physician  of  Miletus,  On  the  margin  of  a 
translation  by  Longepierre  (the famous  book-collector), 
Louis  XIV  wrote  that  this  idyl  is  a  model  of 
Iwnourable  gallantry. 

O  DISTAFF,  thou  friend  of  them  that  spin,  gift 
of  grey-eyed  Athene  to  dames  whose  hearts 
are  set  on  housewifery  ;  come,  boldly  come 
with  me  to  the  bright  city  of  Neleus,  where  the 
shrine  of  the  Cyprian  is  green  'neath  its  roof  of 
delicate  rushes.  Thither  I  pray  that  we  may 
win  fair  voyage  and  favourable  breeze  from 
Zeus,  that  so  I  may  gladden  mine  eyes  with 
the  sight  of  Nicias  my  friend,  and  be  greeted 
of  him  in  turn  ; — a  sacred  scion  is  he  of  the 
sweet-voiced  Graces.  And  thee,  distaff,  thou 
child  of  fair  carven  ivory,  I  will  give  into  the 
hands  of  the  wife  of  Nicias  :  with  her  shalt 
thou  fashion  many  a  thing,  garments  for  men, 
and  much  rippling  raiment  that  \vomen  wear. 
For  the  mothers  of  lambs  in  the  meadows 
might  twice  be  shorn  of  their  wool  in  the  year, 


IDYL  XXVIII  153 

with  her  goodwill,  the  dainty-ankled  Theugenis, 
so  notable  is  she,  and  cares  for  all  things  that 
wise  matrons  love. 

Nay,  not  to  houses  slatternly  or  idle  would  I 
have  given  thee,  distaff,  seeing  that  thou  art  a 
countryman  of  mine.  For  that  is  thy  native 
city  which  Archias  out  of  Ephyre  founded,  long 
ago,  the  very  marrow  of  the  isle  of  the  three 
capes,  a  town  of  honourable  men.1  But  now 
shalt  thou  abide  in  the  house  of  a  wise  physician, 
who  has  learned  all  the  spells  that  ward  off 
sore  maladies  from  men,  and  thou  shalt  dwell 
in  glad  Miletus  with  the  Ionian  people,  to  this 
end, — that  of  all  the  townsfolk  Theugenis  may 
have  the  goodliest  distaff,  and  that  thou  mayst 
keep  her  ever  mindful  of  her  friend,  the  lover 
of  song. 

This  proverb  will  each  man  utter  that  looks 
on  thee,  '  Surely  great  grace  goes  with  a  little 
gift,  and  all  the  offerings  of  friends  are  precious.' 

1  Syracuse. 


IDYL    XXIX 

This  poem,  like  the  preceding  one,  is  written  in  the 
Aeolic  dialect.  The  first  line  is  quoted  from 
Alcaeus.  The  idyl  is  attributed  to  Theocritus  on 
the  evidence  of  the  scholiast  on  the  Symposium  of 
Plato. 

'  WlNE  and  truth,'  dear  child,  says  the  proverb, 
and  in  wine  are  we,  and  the  truth  we  must  tell. 
Yes,  I  will  say  to  thee  all  that  lies  in  my  soul's 
inmost  chamber.  Thou  dost  not  care  to  love 
me  with  thy  whole  heart !  I  know,  for  I  live 
half  my  life  in  the  sight  of  thy  beauty,  but  all 
the  rest  is  ruined.  When  thou  art  kind,  my 
day  is  like  the  days  of  the  Blessed,  but  when 
thou  art  unkind,  'tis  deep  in  darkness.  How 
can  it  be  right  thus  to  torment  thy  friend  ? 
Nay,  if  thou  wilt  listen  at  all,  child,  to  me,  that 
am  thine  elder,  happier  thereby  wilt  thou  be,  and 
some  day  thou  wilt  thank  me.  Build  one  nest  in 
one  tree,  where  no  fierce  snake  can  come ;  for 
now  thou  dost  perch  on  one  branch  to-day,  and 
on  another  to-morrow,  always  seeking  what  is 
new.  And  if  a  stranger  see  and  praise  thy 
pretty  face,  instantly  to  him  thou  art  more  than 
a  friend  of  three  years'  standing,  while  him  that 


IDYL  XXIX  155 

loved  thee  first  thou  boldest  no  higher  than  a 
friend  of  three  days.  Thou  savourest,  methinks, 
of  the  love  of  some  great  one  ;  nay,  choose 
rather  all  thy  life  ever  to  keep  the  love,  of  one 
that  is  thy  peer.  If  this  thou  dost  thou  wilt  be 
well  spoken  of  by  thy  townsmen,  and  Love  will 
never  be  hard  to  thee,  Love  that  lightly  van- 
quishes the  minds  of  men,  and  has  wrought  to 
tenderness  my  heart  that  was  of  steel.  Nay, 
by  thy  delicate  mouth  I  approach  and  beseech 
thee,  remember  that  thou  wert  younger  yester- 
year, and  that  we  wax  grey  and  wrinkled,  or 
ever  we  can  avert  it ;  and  none  may  recapture 
his  youth  again,  for  the  shoulders  of  youth  are 
winged,  and  we  are  all  too  slow  to  catch  such 
flying  pinions. 

Mindful  of  this  thou  shouldst  be  gentler, 
and  love  me  without  guile  as  I  love  thee, 
so  that,  when  thou  hast  a  manly  beard, 
we  may  be  such  friends  as  were  Achilles  and 
Patroclus  ! 

But,  if  thou  dost  cast  all  I  say  to  the  winds 
to  waft  afar,  and  cry,  in  anger,  '  Why,  why,  dost 
thou  torment  me  ? '  then  I, — that  now  for  thy 
sake  would  go  to  fetch  the  golden  apples,  or  to 
bring  thee  Cerberus,  the  watcher  of  the  dead, 
— would  not  go  forth,  didst  thou  stand  at  the 
court-doors  and  call  me.  I  should  have  rest 
from  my  cruel  love. 


156  THEOCRITUS 


FRAGMENT  OF  THE  BERENICE. 

Athenaeus  (vii.  284  A]  quotes  this  fragment,  which 
probably  was  part  of  a  panegyric  on  Berenice,  the 
mother  of  Ptolemy  Pkiladtlphus. 

AND  if  any  man  that  hath  his  livelihood  from 
the  salt  sea,  and  whose  nets  serve  him  for 
ploughs,  prays  for  wealth,  and  luck  in  fishing, 
let  him  sacrifice,  at  midnight,  to  this  goddess, 
the  sacred  fish  that  they  call  '  silver  white,'  for 
that  it  is  brightest  of  sheen  of  all, — then  let  the 
fisher  set  his  nets,  and  he  shall  draw  them  full 
from  the  sea. 


IDYL    XXX 

THE   DEAD   ADONIS 

This  idyl  is  usually  printed  with  the  poems  of  Theo- 
critus, but  almost  certainly  is  by  another  hand.  I 
have  therefore  ventured  to  imitate  the  metre  of  the 
original. 

WHEN  Cypris  saw  Adonis, 

In  death  already  lying 

With  all  his  locks  dishevelled, 

And  cheeks  turned  wan  and  ghastly, 

She  bade  the  Loves  attendant 

To  bring  the  boar  before  her. 

And  lo,  the  winged  ones,  fleetly 

They  scoured  through  all  the  wild  wood ; 

The  wretched  boar  they  tracked  him, 

And  bound  and  doubly  bound  him. 

One  fixed  on  him  a  halter, 

And  dragged  him  on,  a  captive, 

Another  drave  him  onward, 

And  smote  him  with  his  arrows. 

But  terror-struck  the  beast  came, 

For  much  he  feared  Cythere. 


158  THEOCRITUS 

To  him  spake  Aphrodite, — 

'  Of  wild  beasts  all  the  vilest, 

This  thigh,  by  thee  was  't  wounded  ? 

Was  't  thou  that  smote  my  lover  ? ' 

To  her  the  beast  made  answer — 

'  I  swear  to  thee,  Cythere, 

By  thee,  and  by  thy  lover, 

Yea,  and  by  these  my  fetters, 

And  them  that  do  pursue  me, — 

Thy  lord,  thy  lovely  lover 

I  never  willed  to  wound  him  ; 

I  saw  him,  like  a  statue, 

And  could  not  bide  the  burning, 

Nay,  for  his  thigh  was  naked, 

And  mad  was  I  to  kiss  it, 

And  thus  my  tusk  it  harmed  him. 

Take  these  my  tusks,  O  Cypris, 

And  break  them,  and  chastise  them, 

For  wherefore  should  I  wear  them, 

These  passionate  defences  ? 

If  this  doth  not  suffice  thee, 

Then  cut  my  lips  out  also, 

Why  dared  they  try  to  kiss  him  ?  ' 

Then  Cypris  had  compassion  ; 
She  bade  the  Loves  attendant 
To  loose  the  bonds  that  bound  him. 
From  that  day  her  he  follows, 
And  flees  not  to  the  wild  wood 
But  joins  the  Loves,  and  always 
He  bears  Love's  flame  unflinching. 


EPIGRAMS 

The  Epigrams  of  Tlieocritus  are,  for  the  most  part,  either 
inscriptions  for  tombs  or  cenotaphs,  or  for  t/ie 
pedestals  of  statues,  or  (as  the  third  epigram}  are 
short  occasional  pieces.  Several  of  them  are  but 
doubtfully  ascribed  to  the  poet  of  the  Idyls.  The 
Greek  has  little  but  brevity  in  common  with  the 
modern  epigram. 

I 
For  a  rustic  Altar. 

THESE  dew- drenched  roses  and  that  tufted 
thyme  are  offered  to  the  ladies  of  Helicon. 
And  the  dark- leaved  laurels  are  thine,  O 
Pythian  Paean,  since  the  rock  of  Delphi  bare 
this  leafage  to  thine  honour.  The  altar  this 
white-horned  goat  shall  stain  with  blood,  this 
goat  that  browses  on  the  tips  of  the  terebinth 
boughs. 

II 
For  a  Herdsman! s  Offering. 

Daphnis,  the  white-limbed  Daphnis,  that  pipes 
on  his  fair  flute  the  pastoral  strains  offered  to 


160  THEOCRITUS 

Pan  these  gifts, — his  pierced  reed-pipes,  his 
crook,  a  javelin  keen,  a  fawn-skin,  and  the 
scrip  wherein  he  was  wont,  on  a  time,  to  carry 
the  apples  of  Love. 

Ill 
For  a  Picture, 

Thou  sleepest  on  the  leaf-strewn  ground,  O 
Daphnis,  resting  thy  weary  limbs,  and  the 
stakes  of  thy  nets  are  newly  fastened  on  the 
hills.  But  Pan  is  on  thy  track,  and  Priapus, 
with  the  golden  ivy  wreath  twined  round  his 
winsome  head, — both  are  leaping  at  one  bound 
into  thy  cavern.  Nay,  flee  them,  flee,  shake 
off  thy  slumber,  shake  off  the  heavy  sleep  that 
is  falling  upon  thee. 

IV 
Priapus. 

When  thou  hast  turned  yonder  lane,  goat- 
herd, where  the  oak-trees  are,  thou  wilt  find  an 
image  of  fig-tree  wood,  newly  carven  ;  three- 
legged  it  is,  the  bark  still  covers  it,  and  it  is 
earless  withal,  yet  meet  for  the  arts  of  Cypris. 
A  right  holy  precinct  runs  round  it,  and  a 
ceaseless  stream  that  falleth  from  the  rocks  on 
every  side  is  green  with  laurels,  and  myrtles, 
and  fragrant  cypress.  And  all  around  the 
place  that  child  of  the  grape,  the  vine,  doth 
flourish  with  its  tendrils,  and  the  merles  in 


EPIGRAMS    F,    VI  161 

spring  with  their  sweet  songs  utter  their  wood- 
notes  wild,  and  the  brown  nightingales  reply 
with  their  complaints,  pouring  from  their  bills 
the  honey -sweet  song.  There,  prithee,  sit 
down  and  pray  to  gracious  Priapus,  that  I  may 
be  delivered  from  my  love  of  Daphnis,  and  say 
that  instantly  thereon  I  will  sacrifice  a  fair  kid. 
But  if  he  refuse,  ah  then,  should  I  win  Daphnis's 
love,  I  would  fain  sacrifice  three  victims, — and 
offer  a  calf,  a  shaggy  he-goat,  and  a  lamb  that 
I  keep  in  the  stall,  and  oh  that  graciously  the 
god  may  hear  my  prayer. 


V 
The  rural  Concert. 

Ah,  in  the  Muses'  name,  wilt  thou  play  me 
some  sweet  air  on  the  double  flute,  and  I  will 
take  up  the  harp,  and  touch  a  note,  and  the 
neatherd  Daphnis  will  charm  us  the  while, 
breathing  music  into  his  wax-bound  pipe.  And 
beside  this  rugged  oak  behind  the  cave  will  we 
stand,  and  rob  the  goat-foot  Pan  of  his  repose. 

VI 
The  Dead  are  beyond  hope. 

Ah     hapless    Thyrsis,    where     is    thy    gain, 
shouldst  thou  lament  till  thy  two  eyes  are  con- 
sumed with  tears  ?     She  has  passed  away, — 
the    kid,    the    youngling    beautiful,  —  she    has 
M 


162  THEOCRITUS 

passed  away  to  Hades.  Yea,  the  jaws  of  the 
fierce  wolf  have  closed  on  her,  and  now  the 
hounds  are  baying,  but  what  avail  they  when 
nor  bone  nor  cinder  is  left  of  her  that  is  de- 
parted ? 

VII 
For  a  statue  of  Asdepins. 

Even  to  Miletus  he  hath  come,  the  son  of 
Paeon,  to  dwell  with  one  that  is  a  healer  of  all 
sickness,  with  Nicias,  who  even  approaches 
him  day  by  day  with  sacrifices,  and  hath  let 
carve  this  statue  out  of  fragrant  cedar- wood  ; 
and  to  Eetion  he  promised  a  high  guerdon  for 
his  skill  of  hand  :  on  this  work  Eetion  has  put 
forth  all  his  craft. 

VIII 

Orthorfs  Grave. 

Stranger,  the  Syracusan  Orthon  lays  this 
behest  on  thee ;  go  never  abroad  in  thy  cups 
on  a  night  of  storm.  For  thus  did  I  come  by 
my  end,  and  far  from  my  rich  fatherland  I  lie, 
clothed  on  with  alien  soil. 

IX 
The  Death  of  Cleonicus. 

Man,  husband  thy  life,  nor  go  voyaging  out 
of  season,  for  brief  are  the  days  of  men  !  Un- 


EPIGRAMS  X-XII  163 

happy  Cleonicus,  them  wert  eager  to  win  rich 
Thasus,  from  Coelo-Syria  sailing  with  thy  mer- 
chandise,—with  thy  merchandise,  O  Cleonicus, 
at  the  setting  of  the  Pleiades  didst  thou  cross 
the  sea,  —  and  didst  sink  with  the  sinking 
Pleiades ! 

X 

A  Group  of  the  Muses. 

For  your  delight,  all  ye  Goddesses  Nine,  did 
Xenocles  offer  this  statue  of  marble,  Xenocles 
that  hath  music  in  his  soul,  as  none  will  deny. 
And  inasmuch  as  for  his  skill  in  this  art  he 
wins  renown,  he  forgets  not  to  give  their  due 
to  the  Muses. 

XI 
The  Grave  of  Eusthenes. 

This  is  the  memorial  stone  of  Eusthenes,  the 
sage ;  a  physiognomist  was  he,  and  skilled  to 
read  the  very  spirit  in  the  eyes.  Nobly  have 
his  friends  buried  him — a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land — and  most  dear  was  he,  yea,  to  the  makers 
of  song.  All  his  dues  in  death  has  the  sage, 
and,  though  he  was  no  great  one,  'tis  plain  he 
had  friends  to  care  for  him. 

XII 

The  Offering  of  Demoteles. 

'Twas  Demoteles  the  choregus,  O  Dionysus, 
who  dedicated  this  tripod,  and  this  statue  of 


164  THEOCRITUS 

thee,  the  dearest  of  the  blessed  gods.  No 
great  fame  he  won  when  he  gave  a  chorus  of 
boys,  but  with  a  chorus  of  men  he  bore  off  the 
victory,  for  he  knew  what  was  fair  and  what 
was  seemly. 

XIII 

For  a  statue  of  Aphrodite. 

This  is  Cypris,  —  not  she  of  the  people  ; 
nay,  venerate  the  goddess  by  her  name — the 
Heavenly  Aphrodite.  The  statue  is  the  offer- 
ing of  chaste  Chrysogone,  even  in  the  house 
of  Amphicles,  whose  children  and  whose  life 
were  hers  !  And  always  year  by  year  went 
well  with  them,  who  began  each  year  with  thy 
worship,  Lady,  for  mortals  who  care  for  the 
Immortals  have  themselves  thereby  the  better 
fortune. 

XIV 

The  Grave  of  Eurymedon. 

An  infant  son  didst  thou  leave  behind,  and 
in  the  flower  of  thine  own  age  didst  die,  Eury- 
medon, and  win  this  tomb.  For  thee  a  throne 
is  set  among  men  made  perfect,  but  thy  son 
the  citizens  will  hold  in  honour,  remembering 
the  excellence  of  his  father. 

XV 
The  Grave  of  Eurymedon. 

Wayfarer,  I  shall  know  whether  thou  dost 
reverence  the  good,  or  whether  the  coward  is 


EPIGRAMS   XVI,    XVII  165 

held  by  thee  in  the  same  esteem.  '  Hail  to 
this  tomb,'  thou  wilt  say,  for  light  it  lies  above 
the  holy  head  of  Eurymedon. 


XVI 
For  a  statue  of  Anacreon. 

Mark  well  this  statue,  stranger,  and  say, 
when  thou  hast  returned  to  thy  home,  '  In  Teos 
I  beheld  the  statue  of  Anacreon,  who  surely 
excelled  all  the  singers  of  times  past.'  And  if 
thou  dost  add  that  he  delighted  in  the  young, 
thou  wilt  truly  paint  all  the  man. 

XVII 
For  a  statue  of  Epicharmus. 

Dorian  is  the  strain,  and  Dorian  the  man 
we  sing  ;  he  that  first  devised  Comedy,  even 
Epicharmus.  O  Bacchus,  here  in  bronze  (as 
the  man  is  now  no  more)  they  have  erected  his 
statue,  the  colonists 1  that  dwell  in  Syracuse,  to 
the  honour  of  one  that  was  their  fellow-citizen. 
Yea,  for  a  gift  he  gave,  wherefore  we  should  be 
mindful  thereof  and  pay  him  what  wage  we 
may,  for  many  maxims  he  spoke  that  were 
serviceable  to  the  life  of  all  men.  Great  thanks 
be  his. 

1  Reading  irfSoiKHTTai  (that  is,  the  Corinthian  founders 
of  Syracuse),  and  following  Wordsworth's  other  con- 
jectures. 


166  THEOCRITUS 

XVI II 
The  Grave  of  Cleita, 

The  little  Medeus  has  raised  this  tomb  by 
the  wayside  to  the  memory  of  his  Thracian 
nurse,  and  has  added  the  inscription — 

HERE  LIES  CLEITA. 

The  woman  will  have  this  recompense  for  all 
her  careful  nurture  of  the  boy, — and  why  ? — 
because  she  was  serviceable  even  to  the  end. 

XIX 
The  statue  of  Archilochus. 

Stay,  and  behold  Archilochus,  him  of  old 
time,  the  maker  of  the  iambics,  whose  myriad 
fame  has  passed  westward,  alike,  and  towards 
the  dawning  day.  Surely  the  Muses  loved 
him,  yea,  and  the  Delian  Apollo,  so  practised 
and  so  skilled  he  grew  in  forging  song,  and 
chanting  to  the  lyre. 

XX 

The  statue  of  Pisander. 

This  man,  behold,  Pisander  of  Corinth,  of 
all  the  ancient  makers  was  the  first  who  wrote 
of  the  son  of  Zeus,  the  lion-slayer,  the  ready  of 
hand,  and  spake  of  all  the  adventures  that  with 
toil  he  achieved  Know  this  therefore,  that 


EPIGRAMS   XXI -XXI II  167 

the  people  set  him  here,  a  statue  of  bronze, 
when  many  months  had  gone  by  and  many 
years. 

XXI 

The  Grave  of  Hipponax. 

Here  lies  the  poet  Hipponax  !  If  thou  art  a 
sinner  draw  not  near  this  tomb,  but  if  thou  art 
a  true  man,  and  the  son  of  righteous  sires,  sit 
boldly  down  here,  yea,  and  sleep  if  thou  wilt. 

XXII 
For  the  Bank  of  Caicus. 

To  citizens  and  strangers  alike  this  counter 
deals  justice.  If  thou  hast  deposited  aught, 
draw  out  thy  money  when  the  balance-sheet  is 
cast  up.  Let  others  make  false  excuse,  but 
Caicus  tells  back  money  lent,  ay,  even  if  one 
wish  it  after  nightfall. 

XXIII 
On  Jits  own  Poems  ^ 

The  Chian  is  another  man,  but  I,  Theocritus, 
who  wrote  these  songs,  am  a  Syracusan,  a  man 
of  the  people,  being  the  son  of  Praxagoras  and 
renowned  Philinna.  Never  laid  I  claim  to  any 
Muse  but  mine  own. 

1  This  epigram  may  have  been  added  by  the  first 
editor  of  Theocritus,  Artemidorus  the  Grammarian. 


BION 

lUdaxos   e£   ifprjs  6X4717  Xt/ias    &Kpov  &WTOV. — Calli- 
machus. 

BION  was  born  at  Smyrna,  one  of  the  towns  which 
claimed  the  honour  of  being  Homer's  birthplace.  On 
the  evidence  of  a  detached  verse  (94)  of  the  dirge  by 
Moschus,  some  have  thought  that  Theocritus  survived 
Bion.  In  that  case  Theocritus  must  have  been  a 
preternaturally  aged  man.  The  same  dirge  tells  us 
that  Bion  was  poisoned  by  certain  enemies,  and  that 
while  he  left  to  others  his  wealth,  to  Moschus  he  left 
his  minstrelsy. 


BION 


THE    LAMENT    FOR   ADONIS 

This  poem  was  probably  intended  to  be  sung  at  one  of  the 
spring  celebrations  of  the  festival  of  Adonis,  like  that 
described  by  Theocritus  in  his  fifteenth  idyl. 

WOE,  woe  for  Adonis,  he  hath  perished,  the 
beauteous  Adonis,  dead  is  the  beauteous  Adonis, 
the  Loves  join  in  the  lament.  No  more  in  thy 
purple  raiment,  Cypris,  do  thou  sleep  ;  arise, 
thou  wretched  one,  sable-stoled,  and  beat  thy 
breasts,  and  say  to  all,  '  He  hath  perished,  the 
lovely  Adonis  ! ' 

Woe,  woe  for  Adonis,  the  Loves  join  in  the 
lament ! 

Low  on  the  hills  is  lying  the  lovely  Adonis, 
and  his  thigh  with  the  boar's  tusk,  his  white 
thigh  with  the  boar's  tusk  is  wounded,  and 
sorrow  on  Cypris  he  brings,  as  softly  he 
breathes  his  life  away. 


172  B1ON 

His  dark  blood  drips  down  his  skin  of  snow, 
beneath  his  brows  his  eyes  wax  heavy  and  dim, 
and  the  rose  flees  from  his  lip,  and  thereon  the 
very  kiss  is  dying,  the  kiss  that  Cypris  will 
never  forego. 

To  Cypris  his  kiss  is  dear,  though  he  lives 
no  longer,  but  Adonis  knew  not  that  she  kissed 
him  as  he  died. 

Woe,  woe  for  Adonis,  the  Loves  join  in  the 
lament ! 

A  cruel,  cruel  wound  on  his  thigh  hath 
Adonis,  but  a  deeper  wound  in  her  heart 
doth  Cytherea  bear.  About  him  his  dear 
hounds  are  loudly  baying,  and  the  nymphs  of 
the  wild  wood  wail  him  ;  but  Aphrodite  with 
unbound  locks  through  the  glades  goes  wander- 
ing,— wretched,  with  hair  unbraided,  with  feet 
unsandaled,  and  the  thorns  as  she  passes  wound 
her  and  pluck  the  blossom  of  her  sacred  blood. 
Shrill  she  wails  as  down  the  long  woodlands 
she  is  borne,  lamenting  her  Assyrian  lord,  and 
again  calling  him,  and  again.  But  round  his 
navel  the  dark  blood  leapt  forth,  with  blood 
from  his  thighs  his  chest  was  scarlet,  and 
beneath  Adonis's  breast,  the  spaces  that  afore 
were  snow-white,  were  purple  with  blood. 

Woe,  woe  for  Cytherea,  the  Loves  join  in  the 
lament ! 

She  hath  lost  her  lovely  lord,  with  him  she 
hath  lost  her  sacred  beauty.  Fair  was  the 
form  of  Cypris,  while  Adonis  was  living,  but 


IDYL  I  173 

her  beauty  has  died  with  Adonis  !  Woe,  woe 
for  Cypris,  the  mountains  all  are  saying,  and 
the  oak-trees  answer,  Woe  for  Adonis.  And 
the  rivers  bewail  the  sorrows  of  Aphrodite,  and 
the  wells  are  weeping  Adonis  on  the  mountains. 
The  flowers  flush  red  for  anguish,  and  Cytherea 
through  all  the  mountain-knees,  through  every 
dell  doth  shrill  the  piteous  dirge. 

Woe,  woe  for  Cytherea,  he  hath  perished,  the 
lovely  Adonis  ! 

And  Echo  cried  in  answer,  He  hath  per- 
ished, the  lovely  Adonis.  Nay,  who  but  would 
have  lamented  the  grievous  love  of  Cypris  ? 
When  she  saw,  when  she  marked  the  un- 
staunched  wound  of  Adonis,  when  she  saw 
the  bright  red  blood  about  his  languid  thigh, 
she  cast  her  arms  abroad  and  moaned,  'Abide 
with  me,  Adonis,  hapless  Adonis  abide,  that 
this  last  time  of  all  I  may  possess  thee,  that  I 
may  cast  myself  about  thee,  and  lips  with  lips 
may  mingle.  Awake  Adonis,  for  a  little  while, 
and  kiss  me  yet  again,  the  latest  kiss  !  Nay 
kiss  me  but  a  moment,  but  the  lifetime  of  a 
kiss,  till  from  thine  inmost  soul  into  my  lips, 
into  my  heart,  thy  life-breath  ebb,  and  till  I 
drain  thy  sweet  love-philtre,  and  drink  down 
all  thy  love.  This  kiss  will  I  treasure,  even  as 
thyself,  Adonis,  since,  ah  ill-fated,  thou  art 
fleeing  me,  thou  art  fleeing  far,  Adonis,  and 
art  faring  to  Acheron,  to  that  hateful  king  and 
cruel,  while  wretched  I  yet  live,  being  a  god- 
dess, and  may  not  follow  thee  !  Persephone, 


174  ETON 

take  thou  my  lover,  my  lord,  for  thy  self  art 
stronger  than  I,  and  all  lovely  things  drift 
down  to  thee.  But  I  am  all  ill-fated,  incon- 
solable is  my  anguish,  and  I  lament  mine 
Adonis,  dead  to  me,  and  I  have  no  rest  for 
sorrow. 

1  Thou  diest,  O  thrice-desired,  and  my  desire 
hath  flown  away  as  a  dream.  Nay,  widowed 
is  Cytherea,  and  idle  are  the  Loves  along  the 
halls  !  With  thee  has  the  girdle  of  my  beauty 
perished.  For  why,  ah  overbold,  didst  thou 
follow  the  chase,  and  being  so  fair,  why  wert 
thou  thus  overhardy  to  fight  with  beasts  ? ' 

So  Cypris  bewailed  her,  the  Loves  join  in 
the  lament : 

Woe,  woe  for  Cytherea,  he  hath  perished,  the 
lovely  Adonis  / 

A  tear  the  Paphian  sheds  for  each  blood-drop 
of  Adonis,  and  tears  and  blood  on  the  earth  are 
turned  to  flowers.  The  blood  brings  forth  the 
rose,  the  tears,  the  wind-flower. 

Woe,  woe  for  Adonis,  he  hath  perished,  the 
lovely  Adonis  ! 

No  more  in  the  oak-woods,  Cypris,  lament 
thy  lord.  It  is  no  fair  couch  for  Adonis,  the 
lonely  bed  of  leaves !  Thine  own  bed,  Cy- 
therea, let  him  now  possess, — the  dead  Adonis. 
Ah,  even  in  death  he  is  beautiful,  beautiful  in 
death,  as  one  that  hath  fallen  on  sleep.  Now 
lay  him  down  to  sleep  in  his  own  soft  coverlets, 
wherein  with  thee  through  the  night  he  shared 


IDYL  I  175 

the  holy  slumber  in  a  couch  all  of  gold,  that 
yearns  for  Adonis,  though  sad  is  he  to  look 
upon.  Cast  on  him  garlands  and  blossoms : 
all  things  have  perished  in  his  death,  yea  all 
the  flowers  are  faded.  Sprinkle  him  with  oint- 
ments of  Syria,  sprinkle  him  with  unguents  of 
myrrh.  Nay,  perish  all  perfumes,  for  Adonis, 
who  was  thy  perfume,  hath  perished. 

He  reclines,  the  delicate  Adonis,  in  his  rai- 
ment of  purple,  and  around  him  the  Loves  are 
weeping,  and  groaning  aloud,  clipping  their 
locks  for  Adonis.  And  one  upon  his  shafts, 
another  on  his  bow  is  treading,  and  one  hath 
loosed  the  sandal  of  Adonis,  and  another  hath 
broken  his  own  feathered  quiver,  and  one  in  a 
golden  vessel  bears  water,  and  another  laves 
the  wound,  and  another  from  behind  him  with 
his  wings  is  fanning  Adonis. 

Woe,  woe  for  Cytherea,  the  Loves  join  in  the 
lament  / 

Every  torch  on  the  lintels  of  the  door  has 
Hymenaeus  quenched,  and  hath  torn  to  shreds 
the  bridal  crown,  and  Hymen  no  more,  Hymen 
no  more  is  the  song,  but  a  new  song  is  sung  of 
wailing. 

'  Woe,  woe  for  Adonis]  rather  than  the 
nuptial  song  the  Graces  are  shrilling,  lament- 
ing the  son  of  Cinyras,  and  one  to  the 
other  declaring,  He  hath  perished,  the  lovely 
Adonis. 

And  woe,  woe  for  Adonis,  shrilly  cry  the 
Muses,  neglecting  Paeon,  and  they  lament 


1 76  BION 

Adonis  aloud,  and  songs  they  chant  to  him, 
but  he  does  not  heed  them,  not  that  he  is  loth 
to  hear,  but  that  the  Maiden  of  Hades  doth  not 
let  him  go. 

Cease,  Cytherea,  from  thy  lamentations, 
to-day  refrain  from  thy  dirges.  Thou  must 
again  bewail  him,  again  must  weep  for  him 
another  year. 


II 
THE   LOVE   OF   ACHILLES 

Lycidas  sings  to  Myrson  a  fragment  about  the  loves  of 
Achilles  and  Deidamia. 

Myrson.  Wilt  thou  be  pleased  now,  Lycidas, 
to  sing  me  sweetly  some  sweet  Sicilian  song, 
some  wistful  strain  delectable,  some  lay  of  love, 
such  as  the  Cyclops  Polyphemus  sang  on  the 
sea-banks  to  Galatea  ? 

Lycidas.  Yes,  Myrson,  and  I  too  fain  would 
pipe,  but  what  shall  I  sing  ? 

Myrson.  A  song  of  Scyra,  Lycidas,  is  my 
desire, — a  sweet  love-story, — the  stolen  kisses 
of  the  son  of  Peleus,  the  stolen  bed  of  love  ; 
how  he,  that  was  a  boy,  did  on  the  weeds  of 
women,  and  how  he  belied  his  form,  and  how 
among  the  heedless  daughters  of  Lycomedes, 
Deidamia  cherished  Achilles  in  her  bower.1 

1  This  conjecture  of  Meineke's  offers,  at  least,  a 
meaning. 


IDYL  II  177 

Lycidas.  The  herdsman  bore  off  Helen,  upon 
a  time,  and  carried  her  to  Ida,  sore  sorrow  to 
Ginone.  And  Lacedaemon  waxed  wroth,  and 
gathered  together  all  the  Achaean  folk  ;  there 
was  never  a  Hellene,  not  one  of  the  Mycenae- 
ans,  nor  any  man  of  Elis,  nor  of  the  Laconians, 
that  tarried  in  his  house,  and  shunned  the  cruel 
Ares. 

But  Achilles  alone  lay  hid  among  the 
daughters  of  Lycomedes,  and  was  trained  to 
work  in  wools,  in  place  of  arms,  and  in  his 
white  hand  held  the  bough  of  maidenhood,  in 
semblance  a  maiden.  For  he  put  on  women's 
ways,  like  them,  and  a  bloom  like  theirs  blushed 
on  his  cheek  of  snow,  and  he  walked  with 
maiden  gait,  and  covered  his  locks  with  the 
snood.  I3ut  the  heart  of  a  man  had  he,  and 
the  love  of  a  man.  From  dawn  to  dark  he 
would  sit  by  Deidamia,  and  anon  would  kiss 
her  hand,  and  oft  would  lift  the  beautiful  warp 
of  her  loom  and  praise  the  sweet  threads, 
having  no  such  joy  in  any  other  girl  of  her 
company.  Yea,  all  things  he  essayed,  and  all 
for  one  end,  that  they  twain  might  share  an 
undivided  sleep. 

Now  he  once  even  spake  to  her,  saying — 

'  With  one  another  other  sisters  sleep,  but  I 
lie  alone,  and  alone,  maiden,  dost  thou  lie,  both 
being  girls  unwedded  of  like  age,  both  fair,  and 
single  both  in  bed  do  we  sleep.  The  wicked 
Nysa,  the  crafty  nurse  it  is  that  cruelly  severs 
me  from  thee.  For  not  of  thee  have  I  ..." 


N 


178  BION 

III 
THE   SEASONS 

Cleodamus  and  Myrson  discuss  the  charms  of  the  seasons, 
and  give  the  palm  to  a  southern  spring, 

Cleodamus.  Which  is  sweetest,  to  thee,  Myr- 
son, spring,  or  winter  or  the  late  autumn  or 
the  summer  •  of  which  dost  thou  most  desire 
the  coming  ?  Summer,  when  all  are  ended, 
the  toils  whereat  we  labour,  or  the  sweet 
autumn,  when  hunger  weighs  lightest  on  men, 
or  even  idle  winter,  for  even  in  winter  many  sit 
warm  by  the  fire,  and  are  lulled  in  rest  and 
indolence.  Or  has  beautiful  spring  more  de- 
light for  thee  ?  Say,  which  does  thy  heart 
choose  ?  For  our  leisure  lends  us  time  to 
gossip. 

Myrson.  It  beseems  not  mortals  to  judge 
the  works  of  God ;  for  sacred  are  all  these 
things,  and  all  are  sweet,  yet  for  thy  sake  I 
will  speak  out,  Cleodamus,  and  declare  what  is 
sweeter  to  me  than  the  rest.  I  would  not  have 
summer  here,  for  then  the  sun  doth  scorch  me, 
and  autumn  I  would  not  choose,  for  the  ripe 
fruits  breed  disease.  The  ruinous  winter, 
bearing  snow  and  frost,  I  dread.  But  spring, 
the  thrice  desirable,  be  with  me  the  whole  year 
through,  when  there  is  neither  frost,  nor  is  the 
sun  so  heavy  upon  us.  In  springtime  all  is 
fruitful,  all  sweet  things  blossom  in  spring,  and 
night  and  dawn  are  evenly  meted  to  men. 


IDYLS  IV,    V  179 

IV 
THE    BOY    AND    LOVE 

A  fowler,  while  yet  a  boy,  was  hunting  birds 
in  a  woodland  glade,  and  there  he  saw  the 
winged  Love,  perched  on  a  box -tree  bough. 
And  when  he  beheld  him,  he  rejoiced,  so  big 
the  bird  seemed  to  him,  and  he  put  together  all 
his  rods  at  once,  and  lay  in  wait  for  Love,  that 
kept  hopping,  now  here,  now  there.  And  the 
boy,  being  angered  that  his  toil  was  endless, 
cast  down  his  fowling  gear,  and  went  to  the 
old  husbandman,  that  had  taught  him  his  art, 
and  told  him  all,  and  showed  him  Love  on  his 
perch.  But  the  old  man,  smiling,  shook  his 
head,  and  answered  the  lad,  '  Pursue  this  chase 
no  longer,  and  go  not  after  this  bird.  Nay, 
flee  far  from  him.  'Tis  an  evil  creature.  Thou 
wilt  be  happy,  so  long  as  thou  dost  not  catch 
him,  but  if  thou  comest  to  the  measure  of  man- 
hood, this  bird  that  flees  thee  now,  and  hops 
away,  will  come  uncalled,  and  of  a  sudden,  and 
settle  on  thy  head.' 


THE   TUTOR    OF    LOVE 

Great  Cypris  stood  beside  me,  while  still   I 
slumbered,  and  with  her  beautiful  hand  she  led 


i8o  BION 

the  child  Love,  whose  head  was  earthward 
bowed.  This  word  she  spake  to  me,  '  Dear 
herdsman,  prithee,  take  Love,  and  teach  him 
to  sing.'  So  said  she,  and  departed,  and  I — 
my  store  of  pastoral  song  I  taught  to  Love,  in 
my  innocence,  as  if  he  had  been  fain  to  learn. 
I  taught  him  how  the  cross-flute  was  invented 
by  Pan,  and  the  flute  by  Athene,  and  by  Hermes 
the  tortoise-shell  lyre,  and  the  harp  by  sweet 
Apollo.  All  these  things  I  taught  him  as  best 
I  might ;  but  he,  not  heeding  my  words,  him- 
self would  sing  me  ditties  of  love,  and  taught 
me  the  desires  of  mortals  and  immortals,  and 
all  the  deeds  of  his  mother.  And  I  clean  forgot 
the  lore  I  was  teaching  to  Love,  but  what  Love 
taught  me,  and  his  love  ditties,  I  learned  them 
all. 

VI 

LOVE   AND    THE    MUSES 

The  Muses  do  not  fear  the  wild  Love,  but 
heartily  they  cherish,  and  fleetly  follow  him. 
Yea,  and  if  any  man  sing  that  hath  a  loveless 
heart,  him  do  they  flee,  and  do  not  choose  to 
teach  him.  But  if  the  mind  of  any  be  swayed 
by  Love,  and  sweetly  he  sings,  to  him  the 
Muses  all  run  eagerly.  A  witness  hereto  am 
I,  that  this  saying  is  wholly  true,  for  if  I  sing 
of  any  other,  mortal  or  immortal,  then  falters 
my  tongue,  and  sings  no  longer  as  of  old,  but 
if  again  to  Love,  and  Lycidas  I  sing,  then  gladly 
from  my  lips  flows  forth  the  voice  of  song. 


FRAGMENTS  VII -IX  181 

FRAGMENTS 

VII 

I  know  not  the  way,  nor  is  it  fitting  to  labour 
at  what  we  have  not  learned. 

VIII 

If  my  ditties  be  fair,  lo  these  alone  will  win 
me  glory,  these  that  the  Muse  aforetime  gave 
to  me.  And  if  these  be  not  sweet,  what  gain 
is  it  to  me  to  labour  longer  ? 

IX 

Ah,  if  a  double  term  of  life  were  given  us  by 
Zeus,  the  son  of  Cronos,  or  by  changeful  Fate, 
ah,  could  we  spend  one  life  in  joy  and  merriment, 
and  one  in  labour,  then  perchance  a  man  might 
toil,  and  in  some  later  time  might  win  his 
reward.  But  if  the  gods  have,  willed  that  man 
enters  into  life  but  once  (and  that  life  brief,  and 
too  short  to  hold  all  we  desire),  then,  wretched 
men  and  weary  that  we  are,  how  sorely  we  toil, 
how  greatly  we  cast  our  souls  away  on  gain, 
and  laborious  arts,  continually  coveting  yet 
more  wealth  !  Surely  we  have  all  forgotten 
that  we  are  men  condemned  to  die,  and  how 
short  is  the  hour,  that  to  us  is  allotted  by  Fate.1 

1  Les  hommes  sont  fous  condamnfs  d  mart,  avec  des 
sttrsis  indtfinis. — VICTOR  HUGO. 


1 82  BION 


X 

Happy  are  they  that  love,  when  with  equal 
love  they  are  rewarded.  Happy  was  Theseus, 
when  Pirithous  was  by  his  side,  yea,  though 
he  went  down  to  the  house  of  implacable 
Hades.  Happy  among  hard  men  and  inhos- 
pitable was  Orestes,  for  that  Pylades  chose  to 
share  his  wanderings.  And  he  was  happy, 
Achilles  ^Eacides,  while  his  darling  lived, — 
happy  was  he  in  his  death,  because  he  avenged 
the  dread  fate  of  Patroclus. 


XI 

Hesperus,  golden  lamp  of  the  lovely  daughter 
of  the  foam,  dear  Hesperus,  sacred  jewel  of  the 
deep  blue  night,  dimmer  as  much  than  the 
moon,  as  thou  art  among  the  stars  pre-eminent, 
hail,  friend,  and  as  I  lead  the  revel  to  the 
shepherd's  hut,  in  place  of  the  moonlight  lend 
me  thine,  for  to  -  day  the  moon  began  her 
course,  and  too  early  she  sank.  I  go  not  free- 
booting,  nor  to  lie  in  wait  for  the  benighted 
traveller,  but  a  lover  am  I,  and  'tis  well  to 
favour  lovers. 

XII 

Mild  goddess,  in  Cyprus  born, — thou  child, 
not  of  the  sea,  but  of  Zeus, — why  art  thou  thus 
vexed  with  mortals  and  immortals  ?  Nay,  my 


FRAGMENTS  XIII- XV  183 

word  is  too  weak,  why  wert  thou  thus  bitterly 
wroth,  yea,  even  with  thyself,  as  to  bring  forth 
Love,  so  mighty  a  bane  to  all, — cruel  and 
heartless  Love,  whose  spirit  is  all  unlike  his 
beauty  ?  And  wherefore  didst  thou  furnish  him 
with  wings,  and  give  him  skill  to  shoot  so  far, 
that,  child  as  he  is,  we  never  may  escape  the 
bitterness  of  Love. 


XIII 

Mute  was  Phoebus  in  this  grievous  anguish. 
All  herbs  he  sought,  and  strove  to  win  some 
wise  healing  art,  and  he  anointed  all  the 
wound  with  nectar  and  ambrosia,  but  remede- 
less  are  all  the  wounds  of  Fate. 


XIV 

But  I  will  go  my  way  to  yon  sloping  hill ; 
by  the  sand  and  the  sea-banks  murmuring  my 
song,  and  praying  to  the  cruel  Galatea.  But 
of  my  sweet  hope  never  will  I  leave  hold,  till  I 
reach  the  uttermost  limit  of  old  age. 


XV 

It  is  not  well,  my  friend,  to  run  to  the  crafts- 
man, whatever  may  befall,  nor  in  every  matter 
to  need  another's  aid,  nay,  fashion  a  pipe  thy- 
self, and  to  thee  the  task  is  easy. 


1 84  BION 


XVI 

May  Love  call  to  him  the  Muses,  may  the 
Muses  bring  with  them  Love.  Ever  may  the 
Muses  give  song  to  me  that  yearn  for  it, — 
sweet  song, — than  song  there  is  no  sweeter 
charm. 

XVII 

The  constant  dropping  of  water,  says  the 
proverb,  it  wears  a  hole  in  a  stone. 


XVIII 

Nay,  leave  me  not  unrewarded,  for  even 
Phoebus  sang  for  his  reward.  And  the  meed 
of  honour  betters  everything. 

XIX 

Beauty  is  the  glory  of  womankind,  and 
strength  of  men. 

XX 

All  things,  god-willing,  all  things  may  be 
achieved  by  mortals.  From  the  hands  of  the 
blessed  come  tasks  most  easy,  and  that  find 
their  accomplishment. 


MOSCHUS 


OUR  only  certain  information  about  Moschus  is 
contained  in  his  own  Dirge  for  Bion.  He  speaks 
of  his  verse  as  '  Ausonian  song,'  and  of  himself  as 
Mion's  pupil  and  successor.  It  is  plain  that  he  was 
acquainted  with  the  poems  of  Theocritus. 


MOSCHUS 

IDYL    I 

LOVE   THE   RUNAWAY 

CYPRIS  was  raising  the  hue  and  cry  for  Love, 
her  child, — 'Who,  where  the  three  ways  meet, 
has  seen  Love  wandering  ?  He  is  my  runaway, 
whosoever  has  aught  to  tell  of  him  shall  win 
his  reward.  His  prize  is  the  kiss  of  Cypris, 
but  if  thou  bringest  him,  not  the  bare  kiss,  O 
stranger,  but  yet  more  shalt  thou  win.  The 
child  is  most  notable,  thou  couldst  tell  him 
among  twenty  together,  his  skin  is  not  white, 
but  flame  coloured,  his  eyes  are  keen  and  burn- 
ing, an  evil  heart  and  a  sweet  tongue  has  he, 
for  his  speech  and  his  mind  are  at  variance. 
Like  honey  is  his  voice,  but  his  heart  of  gall, 
all  tameless  is  he,  and  deceitful,  the  truth  is 
not  in  him,  a  wily  brat,  and  cruel  in  his  pastime. 
The  locks  of  his  hair  are  lovely,  but  his  brow  is 
impudent,  and  tiny  are  his  little  hands,  yet  far 


1 88  MOSCHUS 

he  shoots  his  arrows,  shoots  even  to  Acheron,  • 
and  to  the  King  of  Hades. 

'  The  body  of  Love  is  naked,  but  well  is  his 
spirit  hidden,  and  winged  like  a  bird  he  flits 
and  descends,  now  here,  now  there,  upon  men 
and  women,  and  nestles  in  their  inmost  hearts. 
He  hath  a  little  bow,  and  an  arrow  always  on 
the  string,  tiny  is  the  shaft,  but  it  carries  as 
high  as  heaven.  A  golden  quiver  on  his  back 
he  bears,  and  within  it  his  bitter  arrows,  where- 
with full  many  a  time  he  wounds  even  me. 

'  Cruel  are  all  these  instruments  of  his,  but 
more  cruel  by  far  the  little  torch,  his  very  own, 
wherewith  he  lights  up  the  sun  himself. 

'  And  if  thou  catch  Love,  bind  him,  and  bring 
him,  and  have  no  pity,  and  if  thou  see  him 
weeping,  take  heed  lest  he  give  thee  the  slip  ; 
and  if  he  laugh,  hale  him  along. 

'  Yea,  and  if  he  wish  to  kiss  thee,  beware,  for 
evil  is  his  kiss,  and  his  lips  enchanted. 

'  And  should  he  say,  "  Take  these,  I  give  thee 
in  free  gift  all  my  armoury,"  touch  not  at  all 
his  treacherous  gifts,  for  they  all  are  dipped  in 
fire.' 


IDYL    II 
EUROPA    AND    THE    BULL 

To  Europa,  once  on  a  time,  a  sweet  dream 
was  sent  by  Cypris,  when  the  third  watch  of 
the  night  sets  in,  and  near  is  the  dawning  ; 
when  sleep  more  sweet  than  honey  rests  on  the 
eyelids,  limb-loosening  sleep,  that  binds  the  eyes 
with  his  soft  bond,  when  the  flock  of  truthful 
dreams  fares  wandering. 

At  that  hour  she  was  sleeping,  beneath  the 
roof-tree  of  her  home,  Europa,  the  daughter  of 
Phoenix,  being  still  a  maid  unwed.  Then  she 
beheld  two  Continents  at  strife  for  her  sake, 
Asia,  and  the  farther  shore,  both  in  the  shape 
of  women.  Of  these  one  had  the  guise  of  a 
stranger,  the  other  of  a  lady  of  that  land,  and 
closer  still  she  clung  about  her  maiden,  and 
kept  saying  how  '  she  was  her  mother,  and 
herself  had  nursed  Europa.'  But  that  other 
with  mighty  hands,  and  forcefully,  kept  haling 
the  maiden,  nothing  loth  ;  declaring  that,  by 
the  will  of  ^Egis-bearing  Zeus,  Europa  was 
destined  to  be  her  prize. 

But  Europa  leaped  forth   from  her  strown 


190  MOSCHUS 

bed  in  terror,  with  beating  heart,  in  such  clear 
vision  had  she  beheld  the  dream.  Then  she 
sat  upon  her  bed,  and  long  was  silent,  still 
beholding  the  two  women,  albeit  with  waking 
eyes  ;  and  at  last  the  maiden  raised  her  timor- 
ous voice : — 

'  Who  of  the  gods  of  heaven  has  sent  forth 
to  me  these  phantoms  ?  What  manner  of 
dreams  have  scared  me  when  right  sweetly 
slumbering  on  my  strown  bed,  within  my 
bower  ?  Ah,  and  who  was  the  alien  woman 
that  I  beheld  in  my  sleep  ?  How  strange  a 
longing  for  her  seized  my  heart,  yea,  and  how 
graciously  she  herself  did  welcome  me,  and 
regard  me  as  it  had  been  her  own  child. 

'  Ye  blessed  gods,  I  pray  you,  prosper  the 
fulfilment  of  the  dream.' 

Therewith  she  arose,  and  began  to  seek  the 
dear  maidens  of  her  company,  girls  of  like  age 
with  herself,  born  in  the  same  year,  beloved  of 
her  heart,  the  daughters  of  noble  sires,  with 
whom  she  was  always  wont  to  sport,  when  she 
was  arrayed  for  the  dance,  or  when  she  would 
bathe  her  bright  body  at  the  mouths  of  the  rivers, 
or  would  gather  fragrant  lilies  on  the  leas. 

And  soon  she  found  them,  each  bearing  in 
her  hand  a  basket  to  fill  with  flowers,  and  to 
the  meadows  near  the  salt  sea  they  set  forth, 
where  always  they  were  wont  to  gather  in  their 
company,  delighting  in  the  roses,  and  the 
sound  of  the  waves.  But  Europa  herself  bore 
a  basket  of  gold,  a  marvel  well  worth  gazing 
on,  a  choice  work  of  Hephaestus.  He  gave  it 


IDYL  II  191 

to  Libya,  for  a  bridal-gift,  when  she  approached 
the  bed  of  the  Shaker  of  the  Earth,  and  Libya 
gave  it  to  beautiful  Telephassa,  who  was  of  her 
own  blood  ;  and  to  Europa,  still  an  unwedded 
maid,  her  mother,  Telephassa,  gave  the  splen- 
did gift. 

Many  bright  and  cunning  things  were 
wrought  in  the  basket  :  therein  was  lo, 
daughter  of  Inachus,  fashioned  in  gold  ;  still  in 
the  shape  of  a  heifer  she  was,  and  had  not  her 
woman's  shape,  and  wildly  wandering  she  fared 
upon  the  salt  sea-ways,  like  one  in  act  to  swim  ; 
and  the  sea  was  wrought  in  blue  steel.  And 
aloft  upon  the  double  brow  of  the  shore,  two 
men  were  standing  together  and  watching  the 
heifer's  sea-faring.  There  too  was  Zeus,  son  of 
Cronos,  lightly  touching  with  his  divine  hand 
the  cow  of  the  line  of  Inachus,  and  her,  by 
Nile  of  the  seven  streams,  he  was  changing 
again,  from  a  horned  heifer  to  a  woman. 
Silver  was  the  stream  of  Nile,  and  the  heifer  of 
bronze  and  Zeus  himself  was  fashioned  in  gold. 
And  all  about,  beneath  the  rim  of  the  rounded 
basket,  was  the  story  of  Hermes  graven,  and 
near  him  lay  stretched  out  Argus,  notable  for 
his  sleepless  eyes.  And  from  the  red  blood  of 
Argus  was  springing  a  bird  that  rejoiced  in  the 
flower-bright  colour  of  his  feathers,  and  spread- 
ing abroad  his  tail,  even  as  some  swift  ship  on 
the  sea  doth  spread  all  canvas,  was  covering  with 
his  plumes  the  lips  of  the  golden  vessel.  Even 
thus  was  wrought  the  basket  of  the  lovely 
Europa. 


192  MOSCHUS 

Now  the  girls,  so  soon  as  they  were  come  to 
the  flowering  meadows,  took  great  delight  in 
various  sorts  of  flowers,  whereof  one  would 
pluck  sweet  -  breathed  narcissus,  another  the 
hyacinth,  another  the  violet,  a  fourth  the  creep- 
ing thyme,  and  on  the  ground  there  fell  many 
petals  of  the  meadows  rich  with  spring.  Others 
again  were  emulously  gathering  the  fragrant 
tresses  of  the  yellow  xrocus  ;  but  in  the  midst 
of  them  all  the  princess  culled  with  her  hand 
the  splendour  of  the  crimson  rose,  and  shone 
pre-eminent  among  them  all  like  the  foam-born 
goddess  among  the  Graces.  Verily  she  was 
not  for  long  to  set  her  heart's  delight  upon  the 
flowers,  nay,  nor  long  to  keep  untouched  her 
maiden  girdle.  For  of  a  truth,  the  son  of 
Cronos,  so  soon  as  he  beheld  her,  was 
troubled,  and  his  heart  was  subdued  by  the 
sudden  shafts  of  Cypris,  who  alone  can  conquer 
even  Zeus.  Therefore,  both  to  avoid  the  wrath 
of  jealous  Hera,  and  being  eager  to  beguile  the 
maiden's  tender  heart,  he  concealed  his  god 
head,  and  changed  his  shape,  and  became  a 
bull.  Not  such  an  one  as  feeds  in  the  stall 
nor  such  as  cleaves  the  furrow,  and  drags  the 
curved  plough,  nor  such  as  grazes  on  the  grass, 
nor  such  a  bull  as  is  subdued  beneath  the  yoke, 
and  draws  the  burdened  wain.  Nay,  but  while 
all  the  rest  of  his  body  was  bright  chestnut,  a 
silver  circle  shone  between  his  brows,  and  his 
eyes  gleamed  softly,  and  ever  sent  forth  light- 
ning of  desire.  From  his  brow  branched  horns 
of  even  length,  like  the  crescent  of  the  horned 


IDYL  II  193 

moon,  when  her  disk  is  cloven  in  twain.  He 
came  into  the  meadow,  and  his  coming  terrified 
not  the  maidens,  nay,  within  them  all  wakened 
desire  to  draw  nigh  the  lovely  bull,  and  to 
touch  him,  and  his  heavenly  fragrance  was 
scattered  afar,  exceeding  even  the  sweet  per- 
fume of  the  meadows.  And  he  stood  before 
the  feet  of  fair  Europa,  and  kept  licking  her 
neck,  and  cast  his  spell  over  the  maiden.  And 
she  still  caressed  him,  and  gently  with  her 
hands  she  wiped  away  the  deep  foam  from  his 
lips,  and  kissed  the  bull.  Then  he  lowed  so 
gently,  ye  would  think  ye  heard  the  Mygclonian 
flute  uttering  a  dulcet  sound. 

He  bowed  himself  before  her  feet,  and,  bend- 
ing back  his  neck,  he  gazed  on  Europa,  and 
showed  her  his  broad  back.  Then  she  spake 
among  her  deep-tressed  maidens,  saying — 

'  Come,  dear  playmates,  maidens  of  like  age 
with  me,  let  us  mount  the  bull  here  and  take 
our  pastime,  for  truly,  he  will  bear  us  on  his 
back,  and  carry  all  of  us  ;  and  how  mild  he  is, 
and  dear,  and  gentle  to  behold,  and  no  whit 
like  other  bulls.  A  mind  as  honest  as  a  man's 
possesses  him,  and  he  lacks  nothing  but 
speech.' 

So  she  spake,  and  smiling,  she  sat  down  on 
the  back  of  the  bull,  and  the  others  were  about 
to  follow  her.  But  the  bull  leaped  up  im- 
mediately, now  he  had  gotten  her  that  he 
desired,  and  swiftly  he  sped  to  the  deep.  The 
maiden  turned,  and  called  again  and  again  to 
her  dear  playmates,  stretching  out  her  hands, 
O 


194  MOSCHUS 

but  they  could  not  reach  her.  The  strand  he 
gained,  and  forward  he  sped  like  a  dolphin, 
faring  with  unwetted  hooves  over  the  wide 
waves.  And  the  sea,  as  he  came,  grew  smooth, 
and  the  sea-monsters  gambolled  around,  before 
the  feet  of  Zeus,  and  the  dolphin  rejoiced,  and 
rising  from  the  deeps,  he  tumbled  on  the  swell 
of  the  sea.  The  Nereids  arose  out  of  the  salt 
water,  and  all  of  them  came  on  in  orderly 
array,  riding  on  the  backs  of  sea-beasts.  And 
himself,  the  thund'rous  Shaker  of  the  World, 
appeared  above  the  sea,  and  made  smooth  the 
wave,  and  guided  his  brother  on  the  salt  sea 
path ;  and  round  him  were  gathered  the 
Tritons,  these  hoarse  trumpeters  of  the  deep, 
blowing  from  their  long  conches  a  bridal 
melody. 

Meanwhile  Europa,  riding  on  the  back  of 
the  divine  bull,  with  one  hand  clasped  the 
beast's  great  horn,  and  with  the  other  caught 
up  the  purple  fold  of  her  garment,  lest  it  might 
trail  and  be  wet  in  the  hoar  sea's  infinite  spray. 
And  her  deep  robe  was  swelled  out  by  the 
winds,  like  the  sail  of  a  ship,  and  lightly  still 
did  waft  the  maiden  onward.  But  when  she 
was  now  far  off  from  her  own  country,  and 
neither  sea-beat  headland  nor  steep  hill  could 
now  be  seen,  but  above,  the  air,  and  beneath, 
the  limitless  deep,  timidly  she  looked  around, 
and  uttered  her  voice,  saying — 

'  Whither  bearest  thou  me,  bull-god  ?  What 
art  thou  ?  how  dost  thou  fare  on  thy  feet 
through  the  path  of  the  sea-beasts,  nor  fearest 


IDYL  II  195 

the  sea  ?  The  sea  is  a  path  meet  for  swift 
ships  that  traverse  the  brine,  but  bulls  dread 
the  salt  sea-ways.  What  drink  is  sweet  to 
thee,  what  food  shalt  thou  find  from  the  deep  ? 
Nay,  art  thou  then  some  god,  for  godlike  are 
these  deeds  of  thine  ?  Lo,  neither  do  dolphins 
of  the  brine  fare  on  land,  nor  bulls  on  the  deep, 
but  dreadless  dost  thou  rush  o'er  land  and  sea 
alike,  thy  hooves  serving  thee  for  oars. 

'  Nay,  perchance  thou  wilt  rise  above  the 
grey  air,  and  flee  on  high,  like  the  swift  birds. 
Alas  for  me,  and  alas  again,  for  mine  exceed- 
ing evil  fortune,  alas  for  me  that  have  left  my 
father's  house,  and  following  this  bull,  on  a 
strange  sea-faring  I  go,  and  wander  lonely. 
But  I  pray  thee  that  rulest  the  grey  salt  sea, 
thou  Shaker  of  the  Earth,  propitious  meet  me, 
and  methinks  I  see  thee  smoothing  this  path 
of  mine  before  me.  For  surely  it  is  not  with- 
out a  god  to  aid,  that  I  pass  through  these 
paths  of  the  waters  ! ' 

So  spake  she,  and  the  horned  bull  made 
answer  to  her  again — 

'  Take  courage,  maiden,  and  dread  not  the 
swell  of  the  deep.  Behold  I  am  Zeus,  even  I, 
though,  closely  beheld,  I  wear  the  form  of  a 
bull,  for  I  can  put  on  the  semblance  of  what 
thing  I  will.  But  'tis  love  of  thee  that  has 
compelled  me  to  measure  out  so  great  a  space 
of  the  salt  sea,  in  a  bull's  shape.  Lo,  Crete 
shall  presently  receive  thee,  Crete  that  was 
mine  own  foster-mother,  where  thy  bridal 
chamber  shall  be.  Yea,  and  from  me  shalt 


196  MOSCHUS 

thou  bear  glorious  sons,  to  be  sceptre-swaying 
kings  over  earthly  men.' 

So  spake  he,  and  all  he  spake  was  fulfilled. 
And  verily  Crete  appeared,  and  Zeus  took  his 
own  shape  again,  and  he  loosed  her  girdle,  and 
the  Hours  arrayed  their  bridal  bed.  She  that 
before  was  a  maiden  straightway  became  the 
bride  of  Zeus,  and  she  bare  children  to  Zeus, 
yea,  anon  she  was  a  mother. 


IDYL    III 
THE   LAMENT    FOR    BION 

WAIL,  let  me  hear  you  wail,  ye  woodland 
glades,  and  thou  Dorian  water  ;  and  weep  ye 
rivers,  for  Bion,  the  well  beloved  !  Now  all  ye 
green  things  mourn,  and  now  ye  groves  lament 
him,  ye  flowers  now  in  sad  clusters  breathe 
yourselves  away.  Now  redden  ye  roses  in 
your  sorrow,  and  now  wax  red  ye  wind-flowers, 
now  thou  hyacinth,  whisper  the  letters  on  thee 
graven,  and  add  a  deeper  ai  ai  to  thy  petals  ; 
he  is  dead,  the  beautiful  singer. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

Ye  nightingales  that  lament  among  the  thick 
leaves  of  the  trees,  tell  ye  to  the  Sicilian  waters 
of  Arethusa  the  tidings  that  Bion  the  herdsman 
is  dead,  and  that  with  Bion  song  too  has  died, 
and  perished  hath  the  Dorian  minstrelsy. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

Ye  Strymonian  swans,  sadly  wail  ye  by  the 
waters,  and  chant  with  melancholy  notes  the 
dolorous  song,  even  such  a  song  as  in  his  time 


198  MOSCHUS 

with  voice  like  yours  he  was  wont  to  sing. 
And  tell  again  to  the  CEagrian  maidens,  tell  to 
all  the  Nymphs  Bistonian,  how  that  he  hath 
perished,  the  Dorian  Orpheus. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

No  more  to  his  herds  he  sings,  that  beloved 
herdsman,  no  more  'neath  the  lonely  oaks  he 
sits  and  sings,  nay,  but  by  Pluteus's  side  he 
chants  a  refrain  of  oblivion.  The  mountains 
too  are  voiceless  :  and  the  heifers  that  wander 
by  the  bulls  lament  and  refuse  their  pasture. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

Thy  sudden  doom,  O  Bion,  Apollo  himself 
lamented,  and  the  Satyrs  mourned  thee,  and 
the  Priapi  in  sable  raiment,  and  the  Panes 
sorrow  for  thy  song,  and  the  fountain  fairies  in 
the  wood  made  moan,  and  their  tears  turned 
to  rivers  of  waters.  And  Echo  in  the  rocks 
laments  that  thou  art  silent,  and  no  more  she 
mimics  thy  voice.  And  in  sorrow  for  thy  fall 
the  trees  cast  down  their  fruit,  and  all  the 
flowers  have  faded.  From  the  ewes  hath 
flowed  no  fair  milk,  nor  honey  from  the  hives, 
nay,  it  hath  perished  for  mere  sorrow  in  the 
wax,  for  now  hath  thy  honey  perished,  and  no 
more  it  behoves  men  to  gather  the  honey  of 
the  bees. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

Not  so  much  did  the  dolphin  mourn  beside 
the  sea -banks,  nor  ever  sang  so  sweet  the 
nightingale  on  the  cliffs,  nor  so  much  lamented 


IDYL  III  199 

the  swallow  on  the  long  ranges  of  the  hills,  nor 
shrilled  so  loud  the  halcyon  o'er  his  sorrows  ; 
(Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge.} 

Nor  so  much,  by  the  grey  sea-waves,  did 
ever  the  sea-bird  sing,  nor  so  much  in  the  dells 
of  dawn  did  the  bird  of  Memnon  bewail  the 
son  of  the  Morning,  fluttering  around  his  tomb, 
as  they  lamented  for  Bion  dead. 

Nightingales,  and  all  the  swallows  that  once 
he  was  wont  to  delight,  that  he  would  teach 
to  speak,  they  sat  over  against  each  other  on 
the  boughs  and  kept  moaning,  and  the  birds 
sang  in  answer,  '  Wail,  ye  wretched  ones,  even 
ye!' 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  tJie  dirge. 

Who,  ah  who  will  ever  make  music  on  thy 
pipe,  O  thrice  desired  Bion,  and  who  will  put 
his  mouth  to  the  reeds  of  thine  instrument  ? 
who  is  so  bold  ? 

For  still  thy  lips  and  still  thy  breath  survive, 
and  Echo,  among  the  reeds,  doth  still  feed 
upon  thy  songs.  To  Pan  shall  I  bear  the 
pipe  ?  Nay,  perchance  even  he  would  fear  to 
set  his  mouth  to  it,  lest,  after  thee,  he  should 
win  but  the  second  prize. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

Yea,  and  Galatea  laments  thy  song,  she 
whom  once  thou  wouldst  delight,  as  with  thee 
she  sat  by  the  sea-banks.  For  not  like  the 
Cyclops  didst  thou  sing — him  fair  Galatea  ever 
fled,  but  on  thee  she  still  looked  more  kindly 


200  MOSCHUS 

than  on  the  salt  water.  And  now  hath  she  for- 
gotten the  wave,  and  sits  on  the  lonely  sands, 
but  still  she  keeps  thy  kine. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

All  the  gifts  of  the  Muses,  herdsman,  have 
died  with  thee,  the  delightful  kisses  of  maidens, 
the  lips  of  boys  ;  and  woful  round  thy  tomb  the 
loves  are  weeping.  But  Cypris  loves  thee  far 
more  than  the  kiss  wherewith  she  kissed  the 
dying  Adonis. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  t/ie  dirge. 

This,  O  most  musical  of  rivers,  is  thy  second 
sorrow,  this,  Meles,  thy  new  woe.  Of  old 
didst  thou  lose  Homer,  that  sweet  mouth  of 
Calliope,  and  men  say  thou  didst  bewail  thy 
goodly  son  with  streams  of  many  tears,  and 
didst  fill  all  the  salt  sea  with  the  voice  of  thy 
lamentation  —  now  again  another  son  thou 
weepest,  and  in  a  new  sorrow  art  thou  wasting 
away. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  J  fuses,  begin  the  dirge. 

O  '   -X  i  O  O 

Both  were  beloved  of  the  fountains,  and  one 
ever  drank  of  the  Pegasean  fount,  but  the  other 
would  drain  a  draught  of  Arethusa.  And  the 
one  sang  the  fair  daughter  of  Tyndarus,  and 
the  mighty  son  of  Thetis,  and  Menelaus 
Atreus's  son,  but  that  other, — not  of  wars,  not  of 
tears,  but  of  Pan,  would  he  sing,  and  of  herds- 
men would  he  chant,  and  so  singing,  he  tended 
the  herds.  And  pipes  he  would  fashion,  and 
would  milk  the  sweet  heifer,  and  taught  lads 


IDYL   III  201 

how   to   kiss,   and    Love   he   cherished   in   his 
bosom  and  woke  the  passion  of  Aphrodite. 
Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

Every  famous  city  laments  thee,  Bion,  and 
all  the  towns.  Ascra  laments  thee  far  more 
than  her  Hesiod,  and  Pindar  is  less  regretted 
by  the  forests  of  Boeotia.  Nor  so  much  did 
pleasant  Lesbos  mourn  for  Alcaeus,  nor  did  the 
Teian  town  so  greatly  bewail  her  poet,  while  for 
thee  more  than  for  Archilochus  doth  Paros 
yearn,  and  not  for  Sappho,  but  still  for  thee 
doth  Mytilene  wail  her  musical  lament ; 

\Here  seven  verses  are  lost.~\ 

And  in  Syracuse  Theocritus  ;  but  I  sing  thee 
the  dirge  of  an  Ausonian  sorrow,  I  that  am  no 
stranger  to  the  pastoral  song,  but  heir  of  the 
Doric  Muse  which  thou  didst  teach  thy  pupils. 
This  was  thy  gift  to  me ;  to  others  didst  thou 
leave  thy  wealth,  to  me  thy  minstrelsy. 
Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

Ah  me,  when  the  mallows  wither  in  the 
garden,  and  the  green  parsley,  and  the  curled 
tendrils  of  the  anise,  on  a  later  day  they  live 
again,  and  spring  in  another  year  ;  but  we  men, 
we,  the  great  and  mighty,  or  wise,  when  once 
we  have  died,  in  hollow  earth  we  sleep,  gone 
down  into  silence  ;  a  right  long,  and  endless, 
and  unawakening  sleep.  And  thou  too,  in  the 
earth  wilt  be  lapped  in  silence,  but  the  nymphs 
have  thought  good  that  the  frog  should  eter- 


202  MOSCHUS 

nally  sing.     Nay,  him  I  would  not  envy,  for  'tis 
no  sweet  song  he  singeth. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

Poison  came,  Bion,  to  thy  mouth,  thou  didst 
know  poison.  To  such  lips  as  thine  did  it 
come,  and  was  not  sweetened  ?  What  mortal 
was  so  cruel  that  could  mix  poison  for  thee,  or 
who  could  give  thee  the  venom  that  heard  thy 
voice  ?  surely  he  had  no  music  in  his  soul. 

Begin,  ye  Sicilian  Muses,  begin  the  dirge. 

But  justice  hath  overtaken  them  all.  Still 
for  this  sorrow  I  weep,  and  bewail  thy  ruin. 
But  ah,  if  I  might  have  gone  down  like  Orpheus 
to  Tartarus,  or  as  once  Odysseus,  or  Alcides  of 
yore,  I  too  would  speedily  have  come  to  the 
house  of  Pluteus,  that  thee  perchance  I  might 
behold,  and  if  thou  singest  to  Pluteus,  that  I 
might  hear  what  is  thy  song.  Nay,  sing  to  the 
Maiden  some  strain  of  Sicily,  sing  some  sweet 
pastoral  lay. 

And  she  too  is  Sicilian,  and  on  the  shores  by 
Aetna  she  was  wont  to  play,  and  she  knew  the 
Dorian  strain.  Not  unrewarded  will  the  sing- 
ing be ;  and  as  once  to  Orpheus's  sweet  min- 
strelsy she  gave  Eurydice  to  return  with  him, 
even  so  will  she  send  thee  too,  Bion,  to  the 
hills.  But  if  I,  even  I,  and  my  piping  had 
aught  availed,  before  Pluteus  I  too  would  have 
sung. 


IDYL    IV 

A  sad  dialogue  bet-ween  Alegara  the  wife  and  Alcmena 
Hie  mother  of  the  wandering  Heracles.  Megara  had 
seen  her  own  children  slain  by  her  lord,  in  his 
frenzy,  while  Alcmena  was  constantly  disquieted  by 
ominous  dreams. 

MY  mother,  wherefore  art  thou  thus  smitten  in 
thy  soul  with  exceeding  sorrow,  and  the  rose  is 
no  longer  firm  in  thy  cheeks  as  of  yore  ?  why, 
tell  me,  art  thou  thus  disquieted  ?  Is  it  be- 
cause thy  glorious  son  is  suffering  pains  un- 
numbered in  bondage  to  a  man  of  naught,  as 
it  were  a  lion  in  bondage  to  a  fawn  ?  Woe  is 
me,  why,  ah  why  have  the  immortal  gods  thus 
brought  on  me  so  great  dishonour,  and  where- 
fore did  my  parents  get  me  for  so  ill  a  doom  ? 
Wretched  woman  that  I  am,  who  came  to  the 
bed  of  a  man  without  reproach  and  ever  held 
him  honourable  and  dear  as  mine  own  eyes, — 
ay  and  still  worship  and  hold  him  sacred  in  my 
heart — yet  none  other  of  men  living  hath  had 
more  evil  hap  or  tasted  in  his  soul  so  many 
griefs.  In  madness  once,  with  the  bow 
Apollo's  self  had  given  him — dread  weapon  of 
some  Fury  or  spirit  of  Death — he  struck  down 


204  MOSCHUS 

his  own  children,  and  took  their  dear  life  away, 
as  his  frenzy  raged  through  the  house  till  it 
swam  in  blood.  With  mine  own  eyes,  I  saw 
them  smitten,  woe  is  me,  by  their  father's 
arrows— a  thing  none  else  hath  suffered  even  in 
dream?.  Nor  could  I  aid  them  as  they  cried 
ever  on  their  mother  ;  the  evil  that  was  upon 
them  was  past  help.  As  a  bird  mourneth  for 
her  perishing  little  ones,  devoured  in  the  thicket 
by  some  terrible  serpent  while  as  yet  they  are 
fledglings,  and  the  kind  mother  flutters  round 
them  making  most  shrill  lament,  but  cannot 
help  her  nestlings,  yea,  and  herself  hath  great 
fear  to  approach  the  cruel  monster  ;  so  I  un- 
happy mother,  wailing  for  my  brood,  with 
frenzied  feet  went  wandering  through  the  house. 
Would  that  by  my  children's  side  I  had  died 
myself,  and  were  lying  with  the  envenomed 
arrow  through  my  heart.  Would  that  this  had 
been,  O  Artemis,  thou  that  art  queen  chief  of 
power  to  womankind.  Then  would  our  parents 
have  embraced  and  wept  for  us  and  with  ample 
obsequies  have  laid  us  on  one  common  pyre, 
and  have  gathered  the  bones  of  all  of  us  into 
one  golden  urn,  and  buried  them  in  the  place 
where  first  we  came  to  be.  But  now  they 
dwell  in  Thebes,  fair  nurse  of  youth,  ploughing 
the  deep  soil  of  the  Aonian  plain,  while  I  in 
Tiryns,  rocky  city  of  Hera,  am  ever  thus 
wounded  at  heart  with  many  sorrows,  nor  is  any 
respite  to  me  from  tears.  My  husband  I  be- 
hold but  a  little  time  in  our  house,  for  he  hath 
many  labours  at  his  hand,  whereat  he  laboureth 


IDYL    IV  205 

in  wanderings  by  land  and  sea,  with  his  soul 
strong  as  rock  or  steel  within  his  breast.  But 
thy  grief  is  as  the  running  waters,  as  thou 
lamentest  through  the  nights  and  all  the  days 
of  Zeus. 

Nor  is  there  any  one  of  my  kinsfolk  nigh  at 
hand  to  cheer  me  :  for  it  is  not  the  house  wall 
that  severs  them,  but  they  all  dwell  far  beyond 
the  pine-clad  Isthmus,  nor  is  there  any  to  whom, 
as  a  woman  all  hapless,  I  may  look  up  and 
refresh  my  heart,  save  only  my  sister  Pyrrha  ; 
nay,  but  she  herself  grieves  yet  more  for  her 
husband  Iphicles  thy  son  :  for  methinks  'tis 
thou  that  hast  borne  the  most  luckless  children 
of  all,  to  a  God,  and  a  mortal  man.1 

Thus  spake  she,  and  ever  warmer  the  tears 
were  pouring  from  her  eyes  into  her  sweet 
bosom,  as  she  bethought  her  of  her  children 
and  next  of  her  own  parents.  And  in  like 
manner  Alcmena  bedewed  her  pale  cheeks  with 
tears,  and  deeply  sighing  from  her  very  heart 
she  thus  bespoke  her  dear  daughter  with  thick- 
coming  words : 

'  Dear  child,  what  is  this  that  hath  come 
into  the  thoughts  of  thy  heart  ?  How  art  thou 
fain  to  disquiet  us  both  with  the  tale  of  griefs 
that  cannot  be  forgotten  ?  Not  for  the  first 
time  are  these  woes  wept  for  now.  Are  they 
not  enough,  the  woes  that  possess  us  from  our 
birth  continually  to  our  day  of  death  ?  In  love 
with  sorrow  surely  would  he  be  that  should 

1  Alcmena  bore  Iphicles  to  Amphictyon,  Hercules  to 
Zeus. 


206  MOSCHUS 

have  the  heart  to  count  up  our  woes  ;  such 
destiny  have  we  received  from  God.  Thyself, 
dear  child,  I  behold  vext  by  endless  pains,  and 
thy  grief  I  can  pardon,  yea,  for  even  of  joy 
there  is  satiety.  And  exceedingly  do  I  mourn 
over  and  pity  thee,  for  that  thou  hast  partaken 
of  our  cruel  lot,  the  burden  whereof  is  hung 
above  our  heads.  For  so  witness  Persephone 
and  fair-robed  Demeter  (by  whom  the  enemy 
that  wilfully  forswears  himself,  lies  to  his  own 
hurt),  that  I  love  thee  no  less  in  my  heart  than 
if  thou  hadst  been  born  of  my  womb,  and 
wert  the  maiden  darling  of  my  house  :  nay,  and 
methinks  that  thou  knowest  this  well.  There- 
fore say  never,  my  flower,  that  I  heed  thee  not, 
not  even  though  I  wail  more  ceaselessly  than 
Niobe  of  the  lovely  locks.  No  shame  it  is  for 
a  mother  to  make  moan  for  the  affliction  of  her 
son :  for  ten  months  I  went  heavily,  even 
before  I  saw  him,  while  I  bare  him  under  my 
girdle,  and  he  brought  me  near  the  gates  of  the 
warden  of  Hell ;  so  fierce  the  pangs  I  endured 
in  my  sore  travail  of  him.  And  now  my  son  is 
gone  from  me  in  a  strange  land  to  accomplish 
some  new  labour  ;  nor  know  I  in  my  sorrow 
whether  I  shall  again  receive  him  returning 
here  or  no.  Moreover  in  sweet  sleep  a  dread- 
ful dream  hath  fluttered  me  ;  and  I  exceedingly 
fear  for  the  ill-omened  vision  that  I  have  seen, 
lest  something  that  I  would  not  be  coming  on 
my  children. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  my  son,  the  might  of 
Heracles,  held  in  both  hands  a  well-wrought 


IDYL  IV  207 

spade,  wherewith,  as  one  labouring  for  hire,  he 
was  digging  a  ditch  at  the  edge  of  a  fruitful 
field,  stripped  of  his  cloak  and  belted  tunic. 
And  when  he  had  come  to  the  end  of  all  his 
work  and  his  labours  at  the  stout  defence  of  the 
vine-filled  close,  he  was  about  to  lean  his  shovel 
against  the  upstanding  mound  and  don  the 
clothes  he  had  worn.  But  suddenly  blazed  up 
above  the  deep  trench  a  quenchless  fire,  and  a 
marvellous  great  flame  encompassed  him.  But 
he  kept  ever  giving  back  with  hurried  feet, 
striving  to  flee  the  deadly  bolt  of  Hephaestus  ; 
and  ever  before  his  body  he  kept  his  spade  as 
it  were  a  shield  ;  and  this  way  and  that  he 
glared  around  him  with  his  eyes,  lest  the  angry 
fire  should  consume  him.  Then  brave  Iphicles, 
eager,  methought,  to  help  him,  stumbled  and 
fell  to  earth  ere  he  might  reach  him,  nor  could 
he  stand  upright  again,  but  lay  helpless,  like  a 
weak  old  man,  whom  joyless  age  constrains  to 
fall  when  he  would  not ;  so  he  lieth  on  the 
ground  as  he  fell,  till  one  passing  by  lift  him 
up  by  the  hand,  regarding  the  ancient  reverence 
for  his  hoary  beard.  Thus  lay  on  the  earth 
Iphicles,  wielder  of  the  shield.  But  I  kept 
wailing  as  I  beheld  my  sons  in  their  sore 
plight,  until  deep  sleep  quite  fled  from  my 
eyes,  and  straightway  came  bright  morn.  Such 
dreams,  beloved,  flitted  through  my  mind  all 
night ;  may  they  all  turn  against  Eurystheus 
nor  come  nigh  our  dwelling,  and  to  his  hurt  be 
my  soul  prophetic,  nor  may  fate  bring  aught 
otherwise  to  pass. 


IDYL    V 

WHEN  the  wind  on  the  grey  salt  sea  blows 
softly,  then  my  weary  spirits  rise,  and  the  land 
no  longer  pleases  me,  and  far  more  doth  the 
calm  allure  me.1  But  when  the  hoary  deep  is 
roaring,  and  the  sea  is  broken  up  in  foam,  and 
the  waves  rage  high,  then  lift  I  mine  eyes  unto 
the  earth  and  trees,  and  fly  the  sea,  and  the 
land  is  welcome,  and  the  shady  wood  well 
pleasing  in  my  sight,  where  even  if  the  wind 
blow  high  the  pine-tree  sings  her  song.  Surely 
an  evil  life  lives  the  fisherman,  whose  home  is 
his  ship,  and  his  labours  are  in  the  sea,  and 
fishes  thereof  are  his  wandering  spoil.  Nay, 
sweet  to  me  is  sleep  beneath  the  broad-leaved 
plane-tree  ;  let  me  love  to  listen  to  the  murmur 
of  the  brook  hard  by,  soothing,  not  troubling 
the  husbandman  with  its  sound. 

IDYL    VI 

PAN  loved  his  neighbour  Echo ;  Echo  loved 
A  gamesome  Satyr ;  he,  by  her  unmoved, 

1  Reading,  with  Weise,  irordyei  8£  TTO\V  ir\f6v  &fj./j.e 


IDYLS  VII,    VIII  209 

Loved  only  Lyde  ;  thus  through  Echo,  Pan, 

Lyde,  and  Satyr,  Love  his  circle  ran. 

Thus  all,  while  their  true  lovers'  hearts  they 

grieved, 
Were   scorned    in   turn,    and    what   they   gave 

received. 

O  all  Love's  scorners,  learn  this  lesson  true  ; 
Be  kind  to  Love,  that  he  be  kind  to  you. 


IDYL    VII 

ALPHEUS,  when  he  leaves  Pisa  and  makes  his 
way  through  beneath  the  deep,  travels  on  to 
Arethusa  with  his  waters  that  the  wild  olives 
drank,  bearing  her  bridal  gifts,  fair  leaves  and 
flowers  and  sacred  soil.  Deep  in  the  waves  he 
plunges,  and  runs  beneath  the  sea,  and  the  salt 
water  mingles  not  with  the  sweet.  Nought 
knows  the  sea  as  the  river  journeys  through. 
Thus  hath  the  knavish  boy,  the  maker  of  mis- 
chief, the  teacher  of  strange  ways — thus  hath 
Love  by  his  spell  taught  even  a  river  to  dive. 


IDYL    VIII 

LEAVING   his   torch  and  his  arrows,   a  wallet 

strung  on  his  back, 
One  day  came  the  mischievous    Love -god  to 

follow  the  plough-share's  track  : 
And  he  chose  him  a  staff  for  his  driving,  and 

yoked  him  a  sturdy  steer, 
P 


And   sowed   in   the   furrows  the   grain  to   the 

Mother  of  Earth  most  dear. 
Then  he  said,  looking  up  to  the  sky  :   '  Father 

Zeus,  to  my  harvest  be  good, 
Lest  I  yoke  that  bull  to  my  plough  that  Europa 

once  rode  through  the  flood  ! ' 


IDYL    IX 

WOULD  that  my  father  had  taught  me  the  craft 

of  a  keeper  of  sheep, 
For  so  in  the  shade  of  the  elm-tree,  or  under 

the  rocks  on  the  steep, 
Piping   on  reeds  I  had  sat,  and  had  lulled  my 

sorrow  to  sleep.1 

1  For  the  translations  into  verse  I  have  to  thank  Mr. 
Ernest  Myers. 


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